One Last Sunset (The Long Ranch Series Book 1) (15 page)

“You seen Mellie?”

“No,” Sunny said and the pain he’d been pushing down for the past few days bubbled to the surface. “Why?”

“Doc called the house, she left a while ago. Last time she was out here getting samples.”

“I haven’t seen her since we came back from Minnesota.”

“She’s been busy with the EPA stuff.” He sighed and examined the cabin.

“They give you any answers?”

“No official report to the town yet. Melody thinks it might be that gas company.”

“Federated?”

“Yeah, they’re newer. I thought they were building a wind farm.” Henry shook one of columns holding up the porch. “You’ve done a really nice job here.”

“Thanks.”

“I was sure that thing was going to collapse.”

“It was rotted out, so I got a new one when I was in town.”

“This place looks great from the outside.”

“The inside’s still a work in progress. That’s why I need a few more days.”

“That’s right,” Henry said as he stroked his chin. “You said something about takin’ off. Back to the rodeo?”

“Probably.”

“You’ll be missed.” Henry peered through the window. “That’s a work in progress?”

Opening the door, the cabin had its own fresh coat of paint and Sunny had put new cabinet facings on.

Henry ran his hand over the scrollwork Sunny had done. “Son, you’re an artist.”

“Growing up I had to fix things. Mostly recycled—well, from the dump. It made my mama happy.”

“I bet it did.” Henry looked into the bathroom that was in pieces. “Probably would still make her happy.”

The trailer did look worse than when he was in high school. Holes were patched with paper stuffed in them, instead of with boards to make the wall look smooth. His father was known to go into rages and punch, kick, and otherwise destroy the place.

“I better get back to that gutter.”

“All right, I’m just going to call over radio that Mel’s not here. Then you can start that noise back up.”

“Yes sir.” Sunny smiled.

“If you ever wanted to settle down you’d make one hell of a cabinet maker.” Henry looked at them one more time, then nodded his head before leaving.

* * * *

“How’s Lester?” Doc asked when Melody got to the clinic.

It had been four days since she’d rushed him to the clinic. Every day Doc asked the same question when she walked through the door. She may focus on large animals, but it was just like being a dermatologist when a woman goes into labor—if you’re the only hand on board, you’re gonna have to pinch hit. “He’s been moving around a lot more now.”

“And Theresa?”

“Not quite back to hating him for show. That really hurt her seeing him like that.”

“Animals can’t talk. He might have been feeling bad for days and hiding it. Lester was a stray so showing vulnerability is not in his nature.”

Mel went to the stack of maps she’d been looking over with Doc the day before. “I was looking over those maps the EPA gave us. The ones that outlined the fracking zone, they didn’t match up to the map of the Winston’s.”

“That’s why they said it couldn’t be them.”

“No, I’m saying the Winston’s property line, that’s not where it is.” She pointed to the EPA map showing the edge of the Winston’s property a good half mile past the creek. “I was out there collecting samples remember?”

“Where’s the line?” Doc asked.

Melody pointed to the north edge of the creek. “That’s where the gas company put their fence. Didn’t that one guy say they don’t even try to drill up to a mile from their borders to make sure any contamination will only be on their property?”

“With the underwater aquifer that wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Yes, it would,” Melody replied as she laid the transparent groundwater map over the top of the topographical. “Kind of. Where they have the Winston’s he’s in the middle of the aquifer that the whole area uses. The edge is still within the mile no drilling zone. Have you seen the county’s property map?”

Doc shuffled through the maps and the solution jumped out at them. There was no way the gas company would have been given rights to drill there. They’d bought up a piece of land with an aquifer. The maps showed nothing but shale north of it and that, according to the county, was the gas company’s.

“Maybe I’m wrong.” Mel looked over the maps. What did she know of topography? “Let me bring these to Conrad.”

When she pulled up, Conrad was holding a roll of barbed wire. “Something up?” he asked as she got out of the car.

“Can you look at some things with me?” she asked.

“Sure.” He tossed the wire to the side. “That can wait for a bit.”

“Got a breech?”

“I’m not sure. Julio said the storms knocked down about a mile stretch of fence. We’ve got the herd staying close to the house just in case.”

“Doc and I were going over the maps. You know, water sources and such. Your line isn’t matching up, but I could be wrong. Any chance you’d be willing to take me out?”

“Of course. What part?”

“The northern border.”

“Perfect, that’s where the fence fell.”

“Really,” Mel said, feeling very uneasy with that fact.

Jumping in Conrad’s truck, they took off along the fence line. Mel watched for landmarks as she compared it to the county’s property map. “How many acres you have?”

“About fifteen thousand.”

Mel used her finger to measure the scale. Yep about fifteen thousand according to the county, but that didn’t include the stream. They came up to where the fence line had gone down. It didn’t look like storm damage to her. Instead, it looked like the post had been ripped out of the ground. They stopped by the stream where the man with two black eyes was pounding the fence back in place, but the yellow signed fence had moved at least twenty feet back from the last place it’d been.

“You never come out this far do you?” Mel asked.

“No, we don’t have a nice cabin like you guys. A lot of the guys working for me have been here since my dad ran the ranch.”

“Who’s that guy?”

“That’s Julio.”

Julio glared over his broken nose at her when she got out of the truck.

With the maps in hand, she started to show Conrad what she believed happened. “They must have drilled here at some point.”

“If there was gas, they wouldn’t pretend the land is mine.”

“Even the chemicals they send down to blast are bad.” Mel looked over at Julio who’d stopped working. “How long has Julio worked for you?”

“Over a year. Why? You think he has something to do with this?”

The same black truck pulled up and parked at the edge of the property once again, watching Conrad and Melody. Mel’s heart began to beat hard. “Doc was looking over the maps and seeing the same thing I found.” With a hard swallow, his face paled before he looked to Julio.

“I wasn’t trying to steal the land,” he confessed. “Julio said they couldn’t use it anyway. Expanding gave us more access to the stream than the little bit that flows through our south pasture.”

Conrad leaned against the truck as his finger traced the town’s aquifer. “My dad left me with three mortgages when he died. I needed to raise more cattle. It’s the only way I knew to make money. That’s why we set up two breeding cycles. With the extra acres we’d be fine.”

“They knew it was happening.” Mel pointed to the EPA map. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t of fixed this map they submitted for approval.”

“I’m going to get in trouble aren’t I?”

“Did you submit the maps to the government for approval?”

“No.” Conrad looked back to where Julio had been working, only he wasn’t there. Suddenly, Conrad dropped to the ground. His eyes were closed and blood flowed from the top of his head.

“The
puta
just couldn’t keep her mouth shut could she?” Julio growled, his eyes dark with hate and the posthole digger in his hand wielded like a bat.

Melody’s heart was in her throat as scenarios played out in her head. None having a good out come. She backed up slowly hoping to make it around to the driver’s side door.

“Maybe we need to find a way to shut you up for good.”

Her eyes cut to Conrad laying lifeless on the ground. From the angle, she could see he was still breathing, but that blood loss seemed a bit too much for her.

“I had one job to do and you couldn’t help fucking it up. You’ve cost me more than medical bills, bitch. Maybe I should take the change out of your ass.”

Mel sprinted to the driver’s side door. When she pulled on the handle, the door flew open as Julio grabbed her from behind and pulled her. The only anchor she had was the door and she held as tight as she could. A hard jerk sent a searing pain into her right shoulder as her fingers released their grip and the world slowed. As if they were dandelions caught on the breeze her fingers floated, then disappeared from her vision. She struggled to get away, but her shoulder pain had her head swimming and her lungs struggling for air.

The smell of body odor from sweat and days of not bathing made her gag. Julio’s sweat seeped through his shirt to hers. His tight grip around her rib cage felt like a corset five sizes too small. Coughing out a scream did nothing but let a soft echo bounce around her. Unable to find air, words would be useless against him.

Melody flew through the air as he tossed her to the ground. Scrambling with her good arm, she tried to pull herself away as he stood over. Gulping air, she attempted to gather herself enough to come up with a plan. Behind her, the stream had practically turned into a river from the recent storms.

Rushing water trapped her as Julio picked up the posthole digger again. The metal tip with its petal-like extrusions had seemed so innocent growing up.

Her right hand felt behind her, but her scooting had her on the bank of the stream. All she felt was the shelf leading down to the bank of the water. “This where you give me some long bad guy speech?” Mel asked, trying to buy time and find moisture in her mouth.

“No.”

The swing came hard and fierce as if her head were the ball on top of a kid’s t-ball stand. Perfectly placed and ready to be hit. Tiny flashes of light reminded her of the Sunny’s firefly lantern as the world went hazy. She reached for Sunshine’s face, only to come up empty. Tumbling down the side of the embankment, she felt ice cold water surround her as her vision darkened.

Chapter Eleven

Having every muscle in your body screaming at you to stop only slowed Sunshine’s resolve to wake. Sure, the sun was burning through the window in the kitchen, but he was in the living room safe from the harmful rays. At least at that moment. Rolling off the couch, he sat up and let the pops and cracks of his joints alert the rest of his body it was time to get going.

His dreams always included Melody and they turned into nightmares quickly. Watching her with another man, being kicked off the ranch…worse yet a group of men taking her behind the bar. Shaking off the last nightmare, he got up and started a fresh pot of coffee. He opened the coffee can to find it with less than enough for one cup. With only a filter with the day old grounds at the top of the trash pile, a decision had to be made. Twice run grounds or a single fresh cup. The choices in life. As he reached for the used filter, the radio came to life.

“We’ve searched the east pasture, she’s not there,”
a voice
crackled over the CB radio.

“That’s it, I’m calling the police.”
It sounded like Henry.

“It hasn’t been twenty four hours. I already spoke to Sheriff Harris.”

“I don’t give a good God damn. Doc said she was going to the Winston’s. Conrad’s out of town and they haven’t seen her.”

The Winstons? Why would Mel be going out there again?

“What about that one girl. Kendra?”

“We’re trying to get ahold of her. I know Mellie was upset about something, but she wouldn’t take off without telling us.”

Sunshine needed to get out of the cabin. He needed fresh air. Melody was fine. She wouldn’t have gone to the Hard Root without her brothers. Well, not
again
.

Did he say she was upset?
Fuck
. Sunshine shoved the cabin door open and went out to scream. It’d been five days since he’d seen Melody and now she was missing. He went around the back of the cabin. The rush of the stream filled his ears as he saw the rapidly moving water. It’d rained in the middle of the night, but it’d been high for days. Looking up to the canyon something upstream caught his eyes. Something was floating in the water. It was big enough to be a log, but—as the image became clear he took off running to the water.

His heart pounded in his ears as the shape floated on top of the water. He lost sight for a minute as the stream curved. When it came back, he was sure. It was Melody. Cold water soaked his jeans and filled his boots as he sloshed through the stream up to his waist. Just a few days ago, the water had only been a few feet high. Now it threatened to overflow its banks.

Melody was lifeless while floating face up as she hit his body going at least forty miles per hour. The collision threw him off his feet and they both were floating down the stream. Struggling against the current, he once again found his footing and pulled her from the water. Cradling her in his arms, he sat praying for to be okay. Her lips, no longer brunt amber, instead had a bluish tint. He wanted to check for a pulse, breathing, anything, but he was afraid. In this moment, she was still alive. If he verified it and she wasn’t breathing, they both might as well float down the stream to the Rio Grande and out to the gulf because he’d lose the only thing he wanted to live for.

“Mellie,” he cried and stroked back her hair. There was a solid lump on the side of her head. “Melody, you have to be alive.”

Shaking, he leaned down and kissed her lips. Breath tickled his lips and he knew she was alive. He carried her to the cabin. Her right arm dangled no, longer attached to her shoulder. He gathered it into his arms and crossed it over her belly.

Holding her tight to his body, he juggled with getting the radio and not letting her go. “I’ve got her,” he called over the radio. “You hear me? I’ve got her. She was in the stream. We need an ambulance.”

“Sunny, that you?”
Henry called back.

“Yes, she was in the stream. She’s beat up bad, but she’s alive.” In his arms, she started to shake or seize, Sunny couldn’t be sure. “Get an ambulance. I’m coming to the main house.”

“I’ll meet you, my truck can drive faster than that damn gator.”

Sunny tore a blanket off of the bed and wrapped Melody in it before getting in the gator. Holding her tight to his body, he took off on the long bumpy trail to the main house. The ache that had been in his muscles and joints disappeared as his fingers dug into her side to make sure she didn’t bounce off. He could stay on a bucking bronco no problem, but Melody was wet and her skin smooth. There was no harness to hold onto. She kept slipping out of his grasp.

He was about half way up the trail when the gator stopped.

“No. No. No. No!” he yelled. It had been days since he’d plugged the damn thing in. He realized now, he was never actually planning on leaving.

Laying Melody out in front of him, he focused on warming her up. Henry would be here soon. He had to be. “Melody,” he cried as he traced her face. “Please wake up.”

Tears ran from his eyes onto her already wet skin as he saw the only woman he’d ever cared for dying in front of him. His head felt as if it were full and unbalanced. The days of not sleeping were crashing against him. Full and uneasy, he leaned down again and kissed her lips.

“Please baby, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to leave you. I want to be with you always. Don’t leave me now. Wake up for me and I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I’m just a dumb cowhand. I thought I didn’t know how to love, but you showed me I knew all along.” His face lingered right next to her cheek. “I remember when you were a kid. I really do. I wasn’t like the rest of the guys. I liked when you were around. Please don’t leave me.” He kissed her again, but felt nothing in response—nothing. Not even the breath tickling his lips. He felt for a pulse. Finding none, he scrambled to lay her out on the ground.

“Not going to happen Mel,” he barked.

Finding the center of her chest, he started pumping. He was going to get her heart back. He’d broken it and he’d be damn sure to fix it and make it better. He needed to. Nothing else mattered. He checked her pulse again. Still not there.

“Mel, I’m more stubborn than you.” He continued with compressions. “You made it to the cabin alive and you’re leaving that way.”

* * * *

How can one be light headed and have a throbbing headache at the same time? Melody couldn’t understand why the world was a swimming pool and yet half of her head felt like it’d been kicked by a mule. It wasn’t a mule. Memories assaulted her brain. Visions of being struck mixed with the scene of Conrad’s lifeless body forced her awake. “It wasn’t a mule,” she muttered as her eyes fluttered.

“Did she say something?” her mother’s voice carried along the waves of the swimming pool in her brain. “Mellie… Mellie, are you awake?”

“It wasn’t a mule,” she said again. How could they not understand it was Julio, not a mule?

“Call the doctor,” her mother ordered. “My baby’s waking up.”

Turning her head from side to side, she struggled to open her eyes. Light blinded her and she snapped them shut. She tried to bring her hand to her face, but couldn’t move her right arm. “Bright,” she groaned.

“Turn down the lights, Sunshine,” her mother snapped. “And close the blinds.”

“Can’t turn down sunshine, mama,” she said as she tried to again to open her eyes. This time the room was darker. “I’m wrong, mama can control the sun.”

“Jesus, she’s making jokes,” MeMaw’s voice called from somewhere in outer space, Mel assumed.

“It wasn’t a mule,” Mel said again.

“What wasn’t a mule, Mel?” a new voice asked and she began to focus enough to make out a doctor standing above her. Behind him was Kendra with her braids tamed and wearing a white lab coat.

“Am I being punked?”

“No,” the doctor said as he flashed a bright light in her eyes.

Spots floated in her vision and once again, she thought of the fireflies. “Sunny,” she cried more to herself. “Why?”

The air in the room shifted as the people standing around her all turned to the far corner where Sunshine was adjusting the blinds.

“We’re going to need you to step out, son,” the doctor said firmly.

“Why?” he asked. “You don’t think—Mel! Tell them I didn’t do this to you?”

“Do what?”

“Melody, you were found floating in the stream with a dislocated shoulder and a knot on your head,” Kendra explained, then glared at Sunny. “Sunshine conveniently found you.”

“It was luck I was outside when she floated by, but that’s the only thing convenient about the whole situation.”

“You haven’t left the room in four days,” Kendra sneered as she stepped closer to Sunny, backing him into a corner. “Afraid she’d talk. She’s too good for you and you knew it. That’s why you beat her within an inch of her life. And then you realized you fucked up, didn’t you?”

“Mel, tell them it wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t a mule,” the words sounded wrong when she said them, but for some reason she couldn’t say the right thing.

“She keeps saying that,” her mother told the doctor.

“She’s trying to tell us something, but she might have some damage from the concussion.”

“I’m calling security,” Kendra said. “Your ass is going to jail.”

“It wasn’t a mule,” Mel said, slapping with her good hand on the bed.

“See,” Sunny said, holding his hand to her. “It wasn’t a mule. It wasn’t me. I’m her favorite stubborn ass.”

Kendra gave him her patented bullshit stare.

“Conrad,” Mel blurted. “He hit Conrad first.”

“Conrad?” her father asked as he came through the door. “Conrad Winston?”

“Yes, black eyes hit him first.”

“Black eyes?” Kendra’s face scrunched in confusion. “Sunny has blue.”

“Black eyes,” Mel said, pointing to Sunny this time for help. “Black eyes hit Conrad, then me. Sweaty.”

“The asshole from the bar,” Sunny growled.

Finally, someone understood her. “Yes, black eyes.”

“Did he try to rape you again?” Sunny asked as he pushed her mother aside to cradle Mel’s face in his hands. “Say he didn’t touch you.”

“Again?” Her dad snarled. “Someone tried to touch my daughter?”

“Miles knows the guy or at least the guy who knows him. We got in a dust up a few weeks ago behind the Hard Root.”

“A man dragged you behind the Hard Root?” Her father’s face became enraged.

Mel looked at Sunny.

“No, he found her there,” he confessed and slid his hand down to Melody’s. “She was with me.”

“You were behind the Hard Root with my daughter?”

“Okay,” the doctor said, holding up his hands. “I think we need to clear the room, so I can examine the patient.”

“But it’s just getting good,” MeMaw said with a chuckle.

“Outside,” her father barked at Sunshine.

Sunny leaned down and kissed her on her lips lightly. “I’ll be back. Almost losing you made me realize there’s only one thing I won’t give up without a fight. As much as I love the brotherhood I find with your family. If I lived the rest of my days with you, I’d never want for anything again. You’re the only home I want.”