Heart of Stone

by Ari McKay

  Fortunately, it seemed what Stone had revealed about his parents had generated far more talk than what Luke had said in his defense, so their secret was still safe, at least for now. He was relieved about that, although there was a small part of him that wondered what would have happened if everything had come out. If they’d been run out of town, could they actually be together, or would Luke end up hating him? For all that Luke protested Copper Lake was just a place and not his home, he cared for every aspect of it as if it was his own, and he took pride in its prosperity. The laws of society meant nothing compared to what a man felt like he owned in his heart.

  Thoughts of Luke continued to occupy him until they arrived at the ranch. As he pulled up, Little Sam jumped down and began unloading the supplies, and Stone left him to it, deciding to head to the stable to check on Raider. He’d not been up on the big stallion since he’d been thrown, and he decided it was past time to get back in the saddle. He hadn’t been leery of riding again; he’d just had an overprotective nanny named Luke who raised a fuss every time he mentioned it, claiming it was too soon and he risked hurting himself worse if Raider threw him again.

  He entered the cool, dim stable and headed toward Raider’s stall. Raider was glad to see him, and Stone stroked his nose fondly. “’Least there ain’t nothin’ complicated about you, is there?” he asked, and Raider snorted and nudged Stone in an obvious demand for a treat.

  A few minutes later, Luke marched into the stables wearing a thunderous expression. He headed to Mist’s stall, not seeming to notice Stone at first, but when he did, he attempted to erase the signs of anger on his face, although not very successfully.

  “Get everything you needed in town?” he asked, sounding more casual than he looked.

  Stone raised a brow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, but I’m thinkin’ that whatever you got goin’ on here is a lot more interestin’. What happened?”

  For a moment, Luke tried a “who, me?” look, but then he grimaced, as if he realized he wouldn’t be let off the hook so easily. “I heard some of the hands talkin’ about this place bein’ cursed. They couldn’t even keep the story straight. One minute, Priss has come back to haunt the place because she don’t like how it’s bein’ run, and the next, you cast some kind of Indian curse on it because you hate white men.”

  “What?” Stone stared, wondering if Luke was joking, but the expression on his face told Stone he was serious. “Why in the hell would they think such a thing? Has somebody been seein’ ghosts?”

  “They were talkin’ about what’s been happenin’ lately,” Luke explained. “Like no one’s ever had a run of bad luck before.”

  Stone didn’t believe in ghosts or curses or any of that nonsense, but he’d met plenty of people over the years who did. One cowboy swore he had to put on his left boot before his right one to ward off scorpions, and another old hand said the ghosts of cowboys who died on the trail could be seen riding across the sky at night, chasing falling stars like stray cattle. They wouldn’t listen to anyone talking sense, because they believed it was true, and that was all that mattered to them.

  Superstitions like that were harmless, but talking about the ranch being haunted or cursed wasn’t; soon the hands would start getting spooked over the least little thing that went wrong and take it as a sign, and then they’d spend more time looking over their shoulders than doing their work. Some might even get scared enough to quit, and that could spell the end of the ranch. They needed hands to do the work; he and Luke couldn’t run the whole place by themselves, and if Copper Lake got a bad reputation, they wouldn’t be able to hire replacements.

  “If I knew an Indian curse, I sure as hell wouldn’t curse my own damned ranch,” he snarled, scowling darkly. “Why do folks always have to find somethin’ or someone to blame things on? We can’t even tell them not to talk, because then they’d say we’re hidin’ somethin’.”

  “Yeah.” Luke shook his head, looking glum. “I reckon all we can do is set a good example and show we ain’t worried or scared, and maybe it’ll die down if nothin’ else really bad happens for a while.”

  Stone thought that over, frustrated by the situation, but he couldn’t see any other option either, and he nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess that’s all we can do.”

  A horrid, loud groaning sound from outside made both of them whirl around, and alarm quickly turned to fear as the groan escalated into a high-pitched shriek. Stone had heard it before in wind storms when trees were being bent beyond their limits, and before his mind caught up with his body, he ran outside, arriving in time to watch as the massive wooden water tank holding all the water they used for the house and stables leaned crazily on its fifteen foot wooden posts like a drunken man staggering on his legs. The wind was blowing hard and steady, and finally one of the posts snapped, sending the wooden tank crashing to the ground.

  Thousands of gallons of water washed over the ground like a flash flood and flowing downhill toward the lower pasture. Broken bits of wood and twisted pieces of the metal that had been used to lash the planks of the tank together were mixed in, and the hands who had been working outside scrambled to get out of the way before they were caught up in the rush of water.

  Stone forced himself to move, running toward the side of the stable that overlooked the pasture. Hopefully none of the cattle were grazing too close on that side, or they’d be swept up by the water or hit with the debris.

  “Oh thank God.” He skidded to a stop when he saw that none of the hands or the cattle—especially the precious calves that would be going to market in the fall—were in the path of destruction. The water washed away into the dry earth, leaving broken bits of the tank in its path.

  Luke came running up and stopped beside him, surveying the damage with visible dismay, and all he could say was “Oh, hell.”

  Stone stared at the wreckage, a horrified sort of numbness washing over him. He didn’t know whether to scream or walk away from everything in defeat. If he’d been a different type of man, he might’ve started believing Priss really had come back to haunt him.

  His pa would’ve given up, and that thought made him square his shoulders and turn to Luke. “I didn’t see nobody get caught in that, but we should round up the hands and make sure no one was hurt. Then I want to talk to every hand that saw it happen. I can’t believe it just went over in the wind like that.”

  Luke stared at Stone blankly for a moment, but then he seemed to shake off the shocked daze he was in and nodded. “I’m on it. You’re right, it’s hard to believe. We check that tank at least once a year to make sure it’s holdin’ up all right. If it’d been showin’ signs of weakness or rot, we’d have caught it before it got to the point of blowin’ over.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Stone clapped Luke on the shoulder. He was sure Luke was feeling just as put upon as he was, if not more. Even though Stone owned the ranch, it had been Luke’s job to make sure everything on it was kept running and in good shape for the past ten years. Now things were suddenly going so wrong, making it look like Luke hadn’t been doing his job, but Stone had seen Luke work, and he knew nothing could be further from the truth. No, it wasn’t a reflection on Luke at all, but Stone was starting to feel like it couldn’t just be bad luck, either—not unless someone was helping it along.

  “This is goin’ to cost us, but we’ll get through it,” he continued, as much to reassure himself as Luke. “I just want to make sure this bad luck is really ours and not someone else wishin’ it on us.”

  Luke looked startled, as if the thought of sabotage hadn’t occurred to him yet, and then his expression turned dark. “If it is someone else doin’ this, they’ll have hell to pay when they get caught,” he muttered, confirming Stone’s suspicions he was taking this personally.

  “Yeah, if we can catch them.” Stone nodded grimly. “I ain’t goin’ to go hurlin’ accusations all over the place, neither. Let’s just keep the thought between me and you. If it is someone else, I don’t want th
em to think we’re on to them. In fact, don’t say a word to the men about it not bein’ Priss’s ghost or a curse. Let them think that way, at least for now. If it’s someone makin’ trouble for us, they might get careless if they think they’re gettin’ away with it.”

  Luke nodded, appearing satisfied with the plan. “Good idea. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut.”

  “That works. So let’s get goin’. Don’t want the men to think we’re lettin’ the ghosts win.”

  By the time the sun set that night, Stone had talked to every hand in the place, but he wasn’t one bit closer to determining if there was anything suspicious going on. None of the hands who’d been close enough to see the water tank topple had noticed anything unusual, and no one had been anywhere near it when it fell. That was a blessing in one sense, because it meant they’d only lost the tank, not hands or livestock, but then again, Stone wished someone had seen something that would help him figure out if there was more than coincidence behind this run of back luck they were having.

  One thing he did find out was that several of the hands were worried a ghost was out to get Stone, and a couple of them had seemed nervous talking with him, almost as if they expected him to put a curse on them. Stone had held his temper, even though he’d wanted to smack some sense into them.

  He hadn’t sent for the sheriff, since he didn’t have proof anything untoward was happening, but he’d told Luke to have the hands stack all the debris they could find in the stable until he and Luke could take a good look at it. If it wasn’t just an accident, maybe something in the scraps of wood and metal would help them figure out what had happened.

  Tired in both mind and body, he’d finally called a halt to things when it had gotten too dark to see. He and Luke went back to the ranch house for supper, and Stone was relieved to learn James was spending the evening with Agnes and her folks, according to Mary, who had seemed amazed and a little envious James had chosen to spend time with a girl far less pretty than she, but Stone wouldn’t have wished his cousin on either of the girls. In his opinion, Agnes was definitely getting the worse end of the bargain.

  He and Luke had discussed what happened, but they hadn’t been able to come up with any thoughts about who would go to such extremes to mess with the ranch, much less why. Stone had gone to bed still worrying over the question, but nothing made any sense. Who could hate him so much they’d wreck the ranch to get at him? In some ways, he wished if there was someone after him, they’d just challenge him to a gunfight. Stone far preferred an enemy he could see, to one that stalked the shadows like a ghost—especially if, by some horrible twist of fate, there really was one.

  20

  THE ranch was quiet and peaceful in the early morning light, but Luke knew appearances could be deceiving. Although construction of a new water tank had already begun, it would take a lot of time and effort to build it and refill it, and in the meantime, life was a lot more difficult and inconvenient.

  Standing in the yard looking around at the ranch he’d called home for over a decade, Luke felt as if he hardly knew the place any longer. No, that wasn’t quite right. Everything looked more or less the same, but it all felt different. When Priss was alive and Sarah was still here, Luke had been pretending, but in a passive way. He hadn’t been interested in anyone, and being their decoy hadn’t required much effort on his part. Hiding what he felt for Stone was a different matter altogether, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the pretense.

  Part of his frustration was due to all the problems that had sprung up lately, and he knew that was coloring everything and making the situation seem bleaker than it was. Still, he couldn’t help it. The ranch had seen hard times before, but this was different. Stone thought someone was sabotaging them, and Luke was inclined to agree. He didn’t believe in ghosts or curses, but he did believe in deliberate meanness, having seen it in folks more often than he’d like, and the “coincidences” were starting to pile up a bit too high for him to see anything but malice at work.

  All of it was starting to make the ranch feel less like home to Luke. He was willing to work hard and help the ranch recover from its recent losses, because those were problems that could be fixed. It might be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult, but the ranch’s bank account was healthy enough to ride out a bad year. Luke still had no idea what to do about the problems with Stone, however.

  A strong whiff of smoke brought Luke out of his thoughts, and he frowned as he peered around for the source of it. It wasn’t trash-burning day yet, and anyway, that was done well away from the buildings in case a stray spark got carried by the wind. His heart sank when he saw a plume of black smoke rising over the stable and the telltale flicker of flames, and before his mind could recover from the shock, his body was in motion. He ran to the bunkhouse and began banging on the iron triangle Charlie used to summon the hands for a meal.

  “Fire!” he cried desperately. “Fire in the stable! Get water! Get the horses out!”

  There was a moment of silence as the triangle’s sound died away, and then chaos erupted as the hands came pouring out of the bunkhouse, some without shoes or shirts on, caught in the middle of dressing. As he pointed frantically toward the stable, they rushed in that direction, most of them looking grim and determined; the horses were the most important thing to every cowboy on the place.

  The back door of the main house opened then, and Stone came running out, his shirt unbuttoned and his feet still bare. He glanced at Luke, and there was no mistaking the despair in his eyes; without the water tank, they had only what water they could get from the troughs and the output of the windmill, which wouldn’t be enough to halt a big blaze. Then Stone was past him, running for the stable, with Luke right behind him.

  Men were already leading horses out, the animals wild-eyed with panic from the smoke and flames. Through the door, they could see the rear of the building seemed to be engulfed, and Stone grabbed Shorty as he started past with his horse. “Get the men on a bucket brigade from the troughs! We’ll try to save it!”

  Shorty nodded, handing off his mount to another hand and shouting for others to follow. Stone looked at Luke, and Luke knew they were thinking the same thing: Raider and Mist were in the very last stalls, closest to the flames. For all they knew, the horses could already be goners. But Stone set his jaw, nodded to Luke, and then bolted toward the stable, appearing determined to save them.

  Luke ran to catch up, and Stone forged grimly ahead as Luke recoiled from the shock of heat when they reached the stable door. Luke paused long enough to pull his kerchief up over his nose before following Stone inside, squinting to see through the thick smoke; he heard panicked whinnying from the rear of the building and hoped none of the horses still trapped inside were suffering the pain of severe burns.

  The smoke was far thicker and the heat more intense near the back, but Luke could see Mist was still alive, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he hurried to reach the terrified mare. The iron latch on the stall was hot and burned his fingers when he touched it; he hissed with pain, but didn’t hesitate to unlock the stall and grab Mist’s bridle, speaking soothingly to her as he led her out.

  “It’s okay, girl.” He tried to reassure himself as much as her. “I’ve got you. You’re goin’ to be okay.”

  “Damn it!” He heard Stone curse, and when he glanced over at Raider’s stall, he saw that a beam of wood had fallen from the loft overhead, one end ablaze and blocking the stall door. Stone whipped off his shirt and wrapped it around the unburned part of the wood, using it to pull the beam away from the door.

  Luke wavered, but only for a moment. He steered Mist toward the door and slapped her rump; she whinnied loudly and sped out of the stables as fast as she could. Luke watched long enough to make sure she made it out safely before turning back, intending to help Stone rescue Raider.

  He saw a shadowy form moving off to one side, and he peered through the smoke, wondering if one of the hands had gotten pin
ned or been overcome by the smoke. Quickly, he headed toward the movement, but he stopped short when he got close enough to see the man wasn’t caught or injured.

  No, the damned fool was dragging lumber to the flames! Luke was about to run over and demand to know what the hell he was doing, but then the pieces fell into place in his head. That lumber was from the water tank, and if someone wanted to see it burn, that probably meant they were trying to cover up something.

  He edged closer, wanting to get a look at the man’s face, and somehow, he wasn’t surprised to discover it was that bastard, Hendry, who’d been bad-mouthing Stone to the other hands and trying to stir up trouble by telling them how wrong it was for honest white men to work for a red-skinned savage. Luke had threatened to fire Hendry over it, and Shorty had been helping him keep an ear out in case Hendry started up again. But Hendry hadn’t uttered a peep since, not seeming eager to lose his job, and now Luke had a damned good suspicion as to why.

  There was an ominous groaning creak from overhead, audible even over the flames and the shouts of the hands who were getting the last horses out of the stalls closer to the doors. He whirled to shout a warning to Stone, just in time to see him slap Raider on the rump, sending the big stallion thundering out of the stable like the hounds of hell were chasing him. Stone started to move out of the stall as well, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. The hayloft overhead collapsed, sending burning hay and pieces of wood crashing onto the stalls below. A broken piece of timber caught Stone across the shoulder and head, knocking him to the ground as smoke and flames engulfed the entire side of the stable.