Of Hoof Prints and Heartbeats

Chapter 3

3

“This doesn’t make any damn sense,” Matt mumbled as he whisked off his hat and pushed his fingers through his hair.

A few of the cowboys were working to drive the cattle through the gate to the acres of pasture. The rest were standing guard around the crime scene in the hopes that the forensics team would discover something left behind to explain what they had found. Plastic overalls covered the three lab workers from Durango. They seemed unaffected by the noise and smell of the herd, probably because the odor of decomposing flesh overrode that of cow pies.

Pictures were taken, samples of the soil were collected, and an area constituting a thirty-foot radius around the body was inspected for what the overall-wearing technicians called ‘trace’. Sam had her cell phone pressed to her ear. Her gaze turned away from the remains of her friend, as her brother attempted to explain police procedure. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand, or didn’t care, instead she focused on Shaun’s soothing voice telling her it would be alright. She was having a hard time believing that.

In the area where the Durango team concentrated their gathering efforts, Racer’s body was absent. That didn’t mean the horse wasn’t shot and had traveled some distance before the inevitable occurred. In the direction she was facing, she could see no area where the grass was crushed by something as large as a horse.

“Sure. Thanks, Shaun,” Sam spoke into the phone, then slid the device into her back pocket. She turned to Matt who paced beside her.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Shaun said to let the police and forensics team do their job. He wants to be updated on anything we find.”

“Who would do this?” Matt asked her, knowing she didn’t have an answer, but he needed to voice the questions swirling in his mind.

“If we find that, we’ll get the why. Uncle Joe had no enemies that we know of,” she restated what was already told to the sheriff. “Which means this is either an accident—”

“Two bullets in the back?” Matt interrupted with sarcasm.

“—or someone was after Racer or Crystal Springs.”

Matt held her gaze. They both knew Racer was a bombproof ranch gelding, but he didn’t have the bloodlines, or the equipment, to be used for breeding. Horse thieves were still operating in the twenty-first century. If the horse wasn’t valuable, they were slaughtered, their meat worth maybe a hundred dollars in a foreign market. If they were after horses to run across the scale at auction, why shoot the rider? There were plenty of backyard pets and unguarded barns where the pickings wouldn’t involve murder. So that left Crystal Springs.

Settling his hat on his head, Matt crossed his arms as he stated his conclusion. “The trouble we’ve been having with downed fences, snakes in the barn, trailer tires slashed… well, Sam, even the threats that have come in the mail… they’ve all been directed at the farm. At you.”

“Me?”

“You’re in charge and recently the legal owner. But I can’t imagine you pissing off someone enough that they would kill Uncle Joe just to get back at you.”

She did what Shaun told her to and reported everything to the authorities. Since her father’s murder five months ago, and the speculation that someone was after the Tanner family, Matt had scheduled their ranch hands to patrol the outbuildings and around the main house, especially at night, as a way to keep Sam safe. The incidents within the protected area had subsided, but not the threats or other vandalism to the acreage. Sam’s eyes grew round and her face paled at the possibility that she was responsible for what they had found that morning.

“Oh, s**t, Sam. I didn’t mean that it was your fault that some bastard shot Uncle Joe—” Matt tried to backpedal and explain.

She waved his words away and turned to pace further from the crime scene. After a few steps, she stopped and rested her hands on her hips, her torso bowing forward. Taking a deep breath, she wished for the hundredth time that her father was alive to give her advice.

“Ms. Tanner? We’re done here. We’ll be in contact with Sheriff Calhoun. You can call him if you have any questions,” the young brunette said from behind Sam.

She turned and stared at the lab technician. Not being able to think of what to say in this situation, she just nodded. The tech joined the rest of her team at their vehicle, which was parked behind the sheriff’s. Their gear was stowed in the trunk, and they made a slow turn to head back in the direction they had come, traveling over the same tracks made in the grass.

Her eyes shifted from the tech’s vehicle to the back doors of the coroner’s van. The driver and his assistant were loading a stretcher, on top of which was Uncle Joe zippered inside a black bag. The doors were closed, and a clipboard was handed to the sheriff. The next time she blinked, the van was following in the tracks of the forensics team. Sheriff Calhoun strode to where she and Matt waited. The employees that had set up a physical barrier to protect the crime scene had begun to move away, directing the remaining cattle through the gate. There was an unnatural silence that fell over the scene, and Sam was tempted to pinch herself. But this was no dream devised from her subconscious mind. It was a living, breathing nightmare.

“Sam, I’m sorrier than I can say that this is how Joe’s life ended, and that you had to witness it.”

Sheriff Mitch Calhoun, a man in his late forties, married with two teenage daughters, adjusted his hat. He had played on the local high school football team and topped out at six foot three inches and two hundred sixty pounds. The love of his wife’s cooking, and his often-sedentary job, had added more weight than he had carried ten years ago. Sighing, he looked around, kept his gaze for a moment on the last of the cattle and the cowboys riding drag, then brought his steady brown eyes back to Sam.

From his height, he took in the smaller frame of the woman who had experienced more than her share of grief and tragedy. Large hazel eyes met his from under the brim of her Stetson. Her quivering chin and glistening eyes that had greeted him when he arrived had been replaced by confusion and anger. He knew the Tanner family and understood Sam would cling to these emotions rather than allow herself to be, or anyone to see her as, a simpering woman who fell apart at the slightest challenge.

“I’ll keep working this investigation until we find the ones responsible. If you discover anything, have any suspicions, remember a conversation, you call me right away.”

“Thanks, Mitch. I will.”

Nodding, his gaze shifted over her shoulder to Matt. The man was clearly angry. “Keep up the patrols. If you hear or see anything out of the ordinary, you call. My deputies can pull a few double shifts. It’s in the budget to protect the citizens of Southwestern Colorado.” His dark eyes once again met Sam’s. “Crystal Springs does a lot to support the town. No one wants to see you fall on hard times, or to shut down completely. You, like your daddy, are held in high regard in this community. I can’t see anyone wanting to give you this much trouble. But,” he glanced at the cowboys now through the gate and encouraging the cattle away from the pens and pasture they were familiar with to where he knew there was water and lush grass, “I’ll interview other ranch owners in the area. Maybe they know something we don’t about Joe’s friends or off-duty activities,” he finished, then gave her shoulder a pat.

Sam watched as Mitch returned to his vehicle and began the trek back to town. Turning toward Matt, she sighed. This has to get better. Surely, seeing Joe’s body was the low point in the day, hell, the week. She took the reins Matt held out to her.

“What now, Ms. Tanner?” he asked, using her surname to focus her on the present and what needed to be done in the immediate future.

Checking the cinch, then placing her foot in the stirrup, Sam swung up easily onto the broad back of her horse. “We finish what we started. These cows need to be moved. Horses back at the barn need to be worked. I have office details to see to. And if we’re lucky, we find Racer. Alive.”

Matt nodded. Nothing in her answer, or demeanor, was out of the ordinary. It didn’t surprise him that she kept it together. She was a Tanner, as she had occasionally reminded him, and they were made of tough stuff. He mounted his horse and followed her to the gate and the last of the cattle.

Despite her efforts to keep her attention on the job at hand, her mind began to list the things that would need to be done. Joe’s wife had passed years earlier. She didn’t know if he had a plot next to Mary in the cemetery in Durango. There were people to notify of the tragedy and plans to be made for Joe’s funeral. Shaun had given her reassurance that Mitch and the forensics team would utilize what was available, and dig for more, in order to piece together a possible scenario. She understood police procedure, with Shaun being a sheriff and Carli so recently married to an FBI agent. Sam had faith in the laws and legal system. What she needed was a little comfort. Cole Branson’s piercing blue eyes, black hair, and easy smile came unbidden to her mind.

His father’s saying of, “If you never get out front to lead, the view is always the same,” arose in Cole’s thoughts as his gaze was filled with the back end of several hundred cattle. He smirked and shook his head. Jack Branson had passed eight years earlier and his son could still hear the words of condemnation for being second best. One silver buckle for All-Around High School Cowboy wasn’t enough. The next year, Cole was expected to beat his time in calf roping, draw meaner stock for bareback and bull riding, and earn more points on the circuit. He wasn’t pushed to just be better than all the rest, but to be better than his best.

Graduating c*m laude in three and a half years with his degree in Criminal Justice, then in the top one percent in his class from law school, and even making partner in the most prestigious criminal law firm in the Midwest, would never garner him complete acceptance in his father’s eyes. And he knew why. Robert was the firstborn son, and due to birth order alone, Cole would never be good enough.

If Robert had consistently outscored him in rodeos, had earned a more prestigious degree, had accomplished more than he had, then he could understand and would gladly secede a lifetime of trying to gain his father’s acknowledgement, let alone approval. Robert may have been born first but had spent the last twelve years as a patient in a residential facility for those with severe brain trauma.

Cole took hold of his reins with both hands to keep one of them from reaching up to cover the sudden ache in his chest. He had been there when the accident happened, but too far away to prevent it, or to keep the bull from reacting the way he did. Tests later showed that amphetamines were used on the stock. Cole didn’t want to believe that Robert knew about it or had anything to do with it. Whenever he had asked, his brother didn’t remember the details of the incident. Robert recognized him whenever he visited, and his brain functioned enough to keep the vital organs doing their job, but simple tasks such as feeding himself, toileting, and walking had been taken from him.

At first, Alice and Jack had been adamant about bringing Robert home from the rehabilitation center after weeks of being in the hospital. They hired a nurse. Alice gave up her ranch duties, which included keeping the books, to do the exercises the occupational and physical therapists had shown her to ease the pain in Robert’s palsied limbs. After the third infection, one with the GI tube, and two with the shunt from the brain into the stomach, and Alice struggling to diaper her twenty-one-year-old son, it was decided to take Robert to Crestview Care Facility for Traumatic Brain Injuries.

As Cole rode up on a straggler, his gaze fell on the hooves of the animal. The memory rushed from the past and consumed him.

It was the College National Rodeo Finals, and Robert was in the running for National Champion. He needed a sixty-five for his eight-second ride on the Brahma-mix bull he had drawn, Lil’ Bobby Joe. The name was a joke, as rodeo stock used for bull riding often weighed in at close to a ton. Cole was at the far side of the arena, chatting with some of the cowboys he knew. Hearing his brother’s name announced, he had climbed to the top rail and cheered along with the crowd.

Robert stood over the bull’s back, a foot braced on a rail on each side of the chute. A couple of other competitors helped with the rigging, tightening the rope around the girth of Lil’ Bobby Joe. Robert rosined his glove and ran it along the tail of his rigging. Palm up, the sticky rope was wrapped once around his wide hand, the other fist pounded down the fingers of the gloved hand that was supposed to hold him to the animal. He eased himself the rest of the way onto the bull’s back. A long string of drool was flung as Lil’ Bobby Joe protested by tossing his head and shifting to one side, banging Robert’s knee into the gate. Right hand tight on the rigging, left held high, Robert nodded, and the gate swung open.

Cole, and everyone else in the stadium, watched as Lil’ Bobby Joe took the first leap. Those with a trained eye knew something wasn’t right. By the second spin and kick, Robert was thrown to the right. Instead of landing feet away in the dirt, his grip on the rigging had him hung up. He bounced once off Lil’ Bobby Joe’s shoulder, then he came down under the front feet of the bull. The bullfighter, with his painted face and baggy Wranglers, was right there to distract the animal. The pick-up men crowded the bull yet tried to stay out of reach of the dangerous horns. One rider reached over to release the rigging, only to have the bull spin in his direction, causing his horse to shy away. What really only lasted maybe fifteen or twenty seconds seemed like forever.

Cole was over the arena fence and charging for the bull, not hearing or caring about the shouts from cowboys and judges. Robert was now unconscious, his body tossed time and again like a lifeless rag doll. Cole reached the right side of the bull the same time that the bullfighter had slapped Lil’ Bobby Joe in the forehead to draw his attention towards him and away from Cole. One pull on the rigging and his brother’s body was finally free. The pick-up riders had a hard time getting the juiced bull to exit the arena, and the ambulance wouldn’t enter until the animal was secured.

Placing his hands on Robert’s cheeks, he tried to wake him up by calling his name. Blood oozed over Cole’s fingers from a head wound. He then realized that there wasn’t much on the front of Robert’s body that wasn’t covered in blood. His brother’s shirt was torn. There were muddy, two-toed prints on Robert’s groin and left thigh. Looking like he had been in a fight and lost, his lips, eye, and cheek were bloodied and swollen. Though Robert’s right arm lay at an unnatural angle, based on the blood that seeped from various places on his body to soak his clothes, and Cole’s, a busted shoulder would be the easiest injury to fix. Cole shoved away the insignificant realization that his brother’s rodeo career was over.

The EMTs drove the ambulance close to them and pushed Cole out of the way. Panic clawed at him as he listened to the paramedic describe the injuries to the ER doctor at the hospital and state the vital signs of their patient. They started an IV in the left arm, splinted the right, and placed a collar on Robert’s neck. Sterile wrappings spread around them like grotesque snowflakes as pads of gauze were pressed to the wounds and taped in place.

Slowly, Cole became aware of the crowd that had gathered around him, cowboys and judges who had abandoned the fence to get a first-hand look at their downed comrade, and the hush of the audience. His father’s booming voice demanded knowledge from the EMTs. He reached out to keep his father from interfering with the paramedics. Cole didn’t know which was enough to halt Jack Branson’s forward progress, his restraining hand or the sight of Robert’s bloodied and broken body. Everyone watched as the stretcher was lifted onto the rolling gurney that was pushed through the arena dirt to the back of the ambulance. The slam of the doors and flashing lights brought Jack out of his stupor.

His gaze fell on the hand wrapped around his arm, then his dark eyes rose to meet the blue ones of his youngest son. In that moment, when the sights and sounds around them faded to an insubstantial buzz, Cole was left to not only deal with the pain in his thoughts and heart that Robert’s life, should he live, would never be the same, but was also privy to the feelings of his father. Disbelief. Anger. Questioning why Robert, and not Cole. Robert was older, stronger, had more experience. Cheating was never considered. When Jack blinked, his gaze shifted away from Cole’s, and the cacophony of noise invaded. The walls around Jack’s heart were fortified. From that day on, Cole would somehow be held responsible for Robert’s accident and would never again be caught by his father’s direct gaze.

Not knowing what to do, Cole let his hand fall back to his side. Swallowing on a panic-dry throat was more involuntary rather than a chance to give himself time to collect and catalogue the emotions as he watched his father stoically walk away to meet his mother by the arena gate where the ambulance had passed through. They would drive to the hospital and wait for the doctors to tell them the extent of Robert’s injuries, and his prognosis. Since Cole had his own truck, he was left to do whatever he wanted.

Arriving a short time later at the hospital he found his parents waiting in a small area set up to resemble a living room with couches, a TV, and doilies under a few porcelain figurines placed on the coffee tables in an effort to create comfort for those waiting. The reports from the various doctors were nothing promising. Any plans Jack and Alice Branson had for Robert were irrevocably shattered.