The Bequest

by Hope Anika

  “Tomorrow,” she said.

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  They traveled in silence, Rafe and Lucky staring out the window at the mountain range that speared from the valley floor like a row of jagged teeth. The lack of foothills created a stunning vista, unlike any in the world. Shimmering, blue-green lakes lapped gently at the base of the range, some sandy bottomed and shallow enough to stand in, others deep and cold and thick with trout.

  “Wow,” Rafe said softly. “You really live here?”

  “True story,” she replied.

  He shook his head.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I never knew places like this…Yellowstone…existed.”

  “I didn’t either, not at your age.”

  “How’d you end up here?”

  Cheyenne considered that. Rafe would never hear the story she’d shared with Will—regardless of how old he got to be. It would only hurt him. But everything else was fair game. And she couldn’t expect him to talk to her if she didn’t talk to him.

  “When I left Haven, I went to the bus station,” she told him. “I had eighty-seven dollars and thirteen cents and no clue where I was going. And then, when I looked up at the route board, I saw Cheyenne, Wyoming as a destination—and it cost eighty-five dollars. I took it as a sign.” She shrugged. “It seemed as good a place as any.”

  “Is Cheyenne like this?”

  “No. It’s pretty…but not like this.”

  “Then how’d you get from there to here?”

  A wry smile curved her mouth. “I tried to steal a truck and got caught.”

  “Like…hot wire it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you teach me?”

  Cheyenne slid him a look. “We’ll see.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The guy who owned the truck was a rancher from Jackson. He told me that either I came back to his ranch and worked off the damage—I’d busted one of the windows—or he called the sheriff. So I ended up at his ranch. That ranch right there, as a matter of fact.” Cheyenne pointed it out as she turned onto the gravel road that traveled along the western edge of the ranch property. “The Lone Pine. It’s a cattle ranch that doubles as a dude ranch in the summer. I cleaned rooms, mucked stalls, helped in the kitchen—whatever they needed.”

  “And you liked it?”

  She’d hated it at first. The work was hard and relentless—but it was honest, and once she’d paid her debt, it had given her the first real money she’d ever had. That Hank had never pressed her about her age or her past beyond one initial question when he’d caught her hotwiring his truck had enabled her to trust him and had allowed her a safe place to live until she’d turned eighteen. The only thing he’d insisted on was her getting her GED, which she’d done. And Mabel—the cook—and Angus—the ranch foreman—and Hank had become her de facto family.

  They’d saved her life.

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “He was a good man, and he taught me a lot about being a decent person. I miss him.”

  “Is he…dead?”

  “Yes, several years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Cheyenne glanced at Rafe and smiled. Such a great little person he was. “Thank you.”

  “What happened to the ranch when he died?”

  “His son inherited it. He runs it now.”

  “Do you still live there?” Rafe looked out at the large, two-story log building that sat back from the road, perched atop a small hill that overlooked the rolling pasture filled with grazing cattle.

  “No. I own a small piece of property on the western edge. He sold it to me for pennies before he died.”

  “He was your family,” Rafe said solemnly, watching her.

  A thrush filled her throat. “Yes.” She met that bi-colored gaze. “Like you’re my family.”

  Rafe stared at her for a long, silent moment before nodding. “Family…it isn’t really about blood, is it?”

  “Some would say it is. But for those of us who don’t have any blood ties, I think it’s about whoever you love.”

  They continued on, Rafe absorbing the details of the sprawling ranch, lifting a hesitant hand to wave back at the ranch hands who waved as they rode past in the fields, rounding up strays.

  Cheyenne turned into her driveway, relived to see her small, two-story cabin sitting in vivid relief against the backdrop of the mountains. By the time they pulled up in front of the garage, she could hear Dexter bleating like the crazy goat he was, and Harry was sitting on the railing of the front porch, his tail twitching as he watched them with his one pale green eye.

  Lucky growled at him in the back of her throat.

  “He’ll kick your canine ass,” Cheyenne told her.

  Dexter began to bleat louder. Harry meowed. And from inside the cabin, Chuck started to bark.

  “Home sweet home,” Cheyenne said.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jalalabad was, in Will’s opinion, Afghanistan’s most beautiful city.

  Surprisingly green and lush, the capital of the Nangarhar Province sat at the junction of the Kabul and Kunar Rivers and served as both a social and financial epicenter due to its proximity to the Pakistan border. All manner of products from Pakistan were traded within the city, which also laid claim to being the capital of Afghan cricket and housed Afghanistan’s second largest university.

  The sun was rising over the city as Will and Brodie arrived, passengers in an aging box truck being driven by Ali Sahar, an Afghani rug dealer whose life Will had once saved. They wore traditional perahan tunbaans and turbans and were careful to keep their distinctly American features covered.

  It had taken twenty-six hours to make the trip to Kabul from Denver via D.C. and Dubai. As luck would have it, Brodie had been in Estes Park visiting his sister; they’d flown out of DIA at 4:45 sharp. When they’d landed in D.C., there’d been a text from Cheyenne on Will’s phone.

  COME BACK ALIVE OR WE WILL KICK YOUR ASS SEVEN WAYS TO SUNDAY.

  Love, C&R

  P.S. Home Sweet Home!

  P.S.S. Got ur message. Time to call out the hounds.

  A day later—and ten hours ahead of the time zone they’d left—they arrived at the Kabul airport, where Ali had agreed to retrieve them in his rug delivery truck. Ali didn’t know where they were going or what they were doing, and he hadn’t asked. As far as he was concerned, he owed Will his life, and he would do whatever it took to repay that debt. A widower with three grown daughters and a fondness for American movies, Ali had been Will’s friend since his first tour and was one of the few people in Afghanistan Will trusted.

  It was not Will’s first inclination to involve his old friend in this sordid mess, but as Brodie had been quick to point out, a native would be “damn handy” to have around. A native who understood the intricacies of Afghan society, who could come and go with little notice, who had access to a vehicle large enough to move the cache—and a wholehearted willingness to help.

  But he was staying in the goddamn truck.

  Brodie, on the other hand, was going to be an active participant. A friend since their mutual rodeo circuit days, Brodie was now an Army Ranger, and it was his connections at the base in Bagram to whom they would deliver the cache. Will wasn’t thrilled about delivering them to anyone with bars on their chest, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit on a semi-nuclear arsenal half of the U.S. military was actively seeking. And bars were better than bandits. He would simply have to trust—again.

  But first they had to collect the weapons. Then they would deal with Red.

  On the flight from D.C., Will had found himself going over every word he’d ever exchanged with Rye’s brother, seeking the clues he had to have missed. Every piece of information Red had delivered, every insinuation he’d made. But there was nothing, and if it hadn’t been for Red’s inadvertent comment about the poppy fie
ld, Will would have called him when they’d landed in Kabul and told him where they were headed.

  He hadn’t made that call. Not yet. But he would.

  Worry for Cheyenne and Rafe continued to gnaw at him, in spite of the text he’d received. That Malik would go after Rafe so publically did not bode well. He would do it again; Will was certain. That meant Will needed to get this shit taken care of and get back there before Malik made another move. Which also meant he had to shove the anxiety that rode him into that dark, chaotic place where all of his rage lived and concentrate on the matter at hand—or he would end up dead and of no use to Cheyenne and Rafe. No use to anyone.

  The GPS coordinates that had been sewn onto Rafe’s blanket led them to the industrial part of the city where large warehouses lined the narrow streets, and shipments of oranges, rice and sugarcane were in constant motion, coming and going as the market demanded. Ali parked the truck in an unobtrusive spot, and when Will told him to stay put, smiled his broad, quiet smile, his brown eyes gleaming in the bright morning sunlight as he told Will not to worry so much.

  Locating the correct building was an inexact science, but none of the buildings along the street were secured with the kind of padlock the key in Will’s pocket would fit except for the last one, squat and grey with a sagging metal roof and pigeons roosting along its eaves. When the key fit perfectly, the heavy beat of Will’s heart echoed in his skull, and a chaotic mix of adrenaline and rage coalesced within him. For one brief moment, he couldn’t breathe. But then Brodie nudged him, and the key turned, and the lock popped open, and then they were stepping into the dark, cool space where only small pockets of sunlight hinted at what lay within.

  “I smell death,” Brodie muttered.

  Will did, too. Old death, the kind that had been overlooked. Or ignored.

  They split up, each armed with an old AK-47, which Ali had managed to secure. Will went right, Brodie left, and in the dim light, they moved cautiously through the large space. The scent of death grew, and when they found the bodies—two of them, men partially decayed—neither was surprised. The men were sprawled in the rear of the building, their weapons still resting next to them, clad in black Kevlar.

  Behind them sat the crates Will had watched his team die for.

  “That what we’re lookin’ for, hoss?” Brodie asked.

  But Will didn’t respond. Instead, he stood there, staring at the wooden boxes while anarchy warred with cold control; the need to destroy fought with the awareness that logic and reason were the only way forward.

  Gunfire and screams, and the deafening throb of the rotors; sand blasting him like crushed glass; men stalking toward him.

  That fucking laugh.

  Blood in his mouth, wheezing from his lips; his arm hanging at his side, damaged, useless; his hip collapsing beneath him like a broken stool. And then—

  Cheyenne. Rafe.

  Lucky licking him.

  Will’s chest tightened; blood roared in his head. Brodie reached out a hand and clasped his shoulder.

  “Hoss,” he murmured and squeezed.

  Just breathe.

  It took Will a good minute and a half to regain his precarious control. To slow his heart and make certain he wasn’t having a coronary, to unlock his frozen limbs and go over to the crates and lay a hand atop the sculpted Arabic lettering that decorated the wood.

  Brodie said nothing, watching as Will unstrapped the top crate and lifted it to check the contents. The bombs lay safely nestled within their bed of straw, manufactured death in neat little rows.

  Relief flooded Will, so powerful his knees went weak.

  “Yes?” Brodie persisted.

  Will met his gaze. “Yes.”

  “Good. Then let’s get them loaded, and get the fuck out of here.”

  Will nodded and replaced the lid, strapping it securely back into place. His heart beat heavily, and he wanted a fucking cigarette, but he’d left them behind somewhere and hadn’t bought any more.

  Brodie leaned down and picked up the weapons that lay next to the dead men. “Well, look at that: an upgrade.”

  He handed one to Will. Will checked the clip; almost full.

  “I’ll get Ali,” Brodie said and disappeared.

  A loading door sat along the eastern wall. As Will walked over to it, the pigeons overhead cooed and watched him with interest. Apparently living with the dead didn’t bother them.

  The dead.

  Georgia’s mercs. Will was certain. Although he had no clear memory of the men whose flesh was slowly disintegrating to the hard packed dirt floor, instinct told him they were there that night. Something inside him remembered them. Reviled them.

  Reveled in the scent of their decay.

  Had Georgia killed them? Murdered them and left them to rot with her spoils—so much easier than disposing of their bodies in a country where women were not allowed the freedom to move unaccompanied through the streets. If that were true, then no one had been here since that night. Not her. Not Red. Not anyone.

  The door squealed like an angry pig when Will opened it, but no one paid any heed. Ali backed up the truck, and Brodie and Will loaded the crates silently, securing them carefully in the back of the truck with several of the rugs Ali had stored there.

  Will replaced the padlock and closed the loading door. Then he and Brodie climbed into the truck.

  Ali looked at him solemnly. “We go?”

  “Yes.”

  Brodie watched the mirror. Will held his gun in his lap. Ali pulled out and turned them toward Kabul.

  Rafe stared at the screen of his laptop, but the video he was watching passed through his brain, unnoticed. Pipestone, the Badlands, Yellowstone Lake…they played out before him, accompanied by brief snippets of Cheyenne and Will and Lucky chasing her tail.

  But Rafe didn’t see them.

  He’d come out to the deck to work on his movie and to let Cheyenne talk to her friend Whitney—who kept staring at him as if she expected him to steal something—but there were too many distractions. Like thinking about his new room—a large, square room with a big log bed covered in a thick blue quilt and a picture window that overlooked the Tetons, a room lined with shelves of books and a built-in a desk for his computer. Then there were his new siblings: Chuck the cattle dog and Harry the Maine Coone and Dexter the goat, whose tendency to butt his head against everything—including Rafe’s backside—totally freaked Rafe out.

  If that wasn’t enough, today Rafe had learned how to shoot. Angus—a grizzled, ornery old man who’d called him ‘son’ and spit tobacco to the ground every two minutes—had come up from the ranch, and he and Cheyenne had spent almost two hours teaching Rafe how to load, aim, fire and clean a .22 rifle.

  Rafe had seen more than one gun in his time—in the neighborhoods he’d grown up in they were more common than cars—but he’d never held one, especially not a rifle, and he’d never fired one. The .22 had a long barrel and a pretty wooden stock and the kickback—once he’d gotten used to it—wasn’t bad at all. It surprised Rafe, how good a shot he was, hitting the soda cans Angus had lined up along a downed tree two times out of three.

  It made him feel good. And while he didn’t relish the idea of ever having to shoot at anyone—because there’d been plenty of that in his neighborhood, too—he was glad he at least knew how. That if someone came, he could grab that gun and defend himself. Defend Cheyenne. Not that she needed it. She’d hit the cans every time.

  Along with the lesson had come a lecture about guns not being toys, about always keeping the safety on, about never leaving it loaded and unattended. But Rafe didn’t need the lecture. He’d seen people die from guns. He knew better.

  On top of all that, Rafe was worried about Will. It had been a day and a half since Will left them in Gillette, and Cheyenne hadn’t heard anything. Nothing. And that made Rafe anxious. Cheyenne said it would take a whole day for Will to get where he was going, so they shouldn’t worry, but Rafe did anyway.

  About W
ill. About Malik—even though no one had tried to kidnap him today—and about the future. About suddenly finding himself somewhere so foreign, he might as well be on the moon.

  This place…it was crazy beautiful. Like a movie. So quiet Rafe could hear the grass whisper when the wind blew. And last night, he’d seen the Milky Way for the first time ever. The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion’s Belt… He and Cheyenne had laid on the deck, ticking off the constellations, a million glittering diamonds winking down at him. And today, the scents of the ranch, the cattle, water and mud and hay; the cows mooing, the horses whinnying, the cowboys yelling “hee-ya!” as they herded the livestock from one pasture to the next. It was a whole new world, one Rafe knew nothing about. One he worried he might not fit into.

  Cheyenne told him he would learn, that he was like she’d been, that it was okay. And when he looked over at the mountains that drew the border between Wyoming and Idaho, he thought maybe she was right, because they made him feel…home. They spoke to him. But everything else… like a fish out of water.

  “Whatcha doin’, Rafe?”

  He looked up to see Whitney’s daughter, Sasha, standing behind patio screen door that led from the living room out onto the deck, and for a moment the image of Ruby flashed through his brain, his last sight of her, and in his chest, his heart grew heavy.

  “Nothing,” he muttered and turned away.

  He heard the door slide open and sighed. Sasha was—maybe—seven and so beautiful, just looking at her hurt his eyes. Long, curly, white-blond hair, big, bright blue eyes, cheeks rosy with color. She looked like a doll. Perfect and unreal, as far from him as the city he’d left behind.

  She walked up and stood beside him, where he sat on one of the padded chairs, and looked down at his laptop with pursed lips. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, I said.”

  He could feel those big blue eyes focus on him, but she said nothing. Just stood there, staring at him.

  “What?” he asked, annoyed.

  “How come you don’t like me?”