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Epilogue

December 25, the next year

T
he Christmas tree was almost as tall as the ceiling. From its lush, green branches, Kylie’s precious family ornaments dangled among showy decorations from Shane’s mother’s collection. The scent of fresh pine mingled with the aromas of roast beef and fresh hot rolls drifting from the kitchen.

Relaxing on the leather sofa, Shane surveyed the joyful chaos of opened gifts, scattered paper, and trailing ribbons. In the middle of the floor, Amy was giving Mickey a belly rub. The dog’s eyes were closed. His tail thumped happily on the carpet.

Mickey had grown up to look exactly like his loyal, obedient father. But he wasn’t his father. He was loving and playful, with a goofy streak that kept his young owners laughing—a perfect family dog. Last summer, when Carl had come to work on the ranch, he’d brought Sheila along. Mother and son had enjoyed a tail-wagging reunion, and Sheila had begun teaching her leggy, half-grown pup some herding lessons. Mickey had shown all the right instincts. Come next summer, he’d be full grown and ready to work the cattle like a pro.

Amy gave Mickey’s belly a final scratch and scrambled to her feet. “Dad, can I take Mickey out to the barn?” she asked. “He needs a run. And I saved some carrots for the horses, so they could have a Christmas present, too.”

“Ask your mother first,” Shane said. “She might need your help with dinner.”

“I’ll ask her. But I already set the table and helped her peel potatoes.” She scampered into the kitchen with the dog at her heels. Shane’s stepdaughter had taken to ranch life as if born to it. She loved the animals and spent every minute she could spare on horseback. Her favorite Christmas gift had been the beautiful new boots her parents had bought her. Next summer, if she kept her grades up, Shane had promised her a horse of her own.

In a quiet corner of the room, Hunter was playing a game on his new iPad. Sensing his father’s eyes on him, the boy looked up, grinned, and went back to his game. Hunter enjoyed riding, too, but seemed happiest working with Henry in the machine shop, learning to weld and tinkering with the wrecked motorcycle, which was coming together in slow stages as parts were repaired or tracked down and replaced. Maybe by the time Hunter was old enough to ride it on the back roads, the bike would be ready for him. That was fine with Shane. He’d moved on to other things, like being a father.

As a parent, he had a lot to be thankful for. Kylie’s children had adjusted well, both to the marriage and to their new schools. They were getting good grades, had made some nice friends and both of them were excited about the coming addition to their family.

Two weeks ago, Amy and Hunter had helped him decorate the two big pine trees that flanked the front porch of the house. It had been hard work, hauling strings of lights, tinsel, ornaments, and extension cords up tall, shaky ladders. But the children had wanted to do it. Shane had the feeling it would become one of many family traditions. Life was good. Damned good.

The heat from the fireplace was making him sleepy. It was time he did something useful. Rousing himself off the couch, he strolled into the kitchen, where Kylie was putting the finishing touches on Christmas dinner.

For a moment he paused in the doorway, just taking in the sight of her—the way her blond hair curled softly around her heat-flushed face, the capable movements of her hands, the roundness of her body beneath the loose-fitting blue sweater that matched her eyes. Lord, but she was beautiful. He’d never known how much a man could love a woman till she came into his life.

Stepping behind her, he slid his arms around her swelling waist. The tiny flutter kick against his palm sent a thrill through him that was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. The baby, a boy, was due in three months.

When Shane thought of what he would have missed if he’d followed his dream of roaming the country on his bike, he could only shake his head. He was a happy man, and he owed it all to the blue-eyed angel who’d backed over his motorcycle, shattered his dream and replaced it with something far better.

“You smell good.” He nuzzled his wife’s neck. “Could you use some help in here?”

“Your timing’s perfect,” she said. “Henry and Muriel are on their way over. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Great!” The whole family looked forward to having Henry and Muriel come for Christmas dinner. The two of them had been married for nearly a year, and they still behaved like honeymooners. There was a new spring to Henry’s step, a new sparkle in Muriel’s eyes.

“So what do you need me to do?” Shane asked.

“I need you to lift the roast out of the oven. Let it sit a few minutes before you carve it. While you’re waiting, maybe you can put some ice in the water glasses. That’ll give me time to mash the potatoes and toss the salad. Oh, and Shane—”

“Hmm?” He’d turned toward the oven, but he paused to look back at her. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” She strode toward him, seized the front of his flannel shirt, and yanked him close. “Just kiss me, Cowboy.”

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W
hen Virgil “Bull” Tyler left this life, it was said that his departing spirit roared like a norther across the yellowed spring pastureland, shrilled upward among the buttes and hoodoos of the Caprock Escarpment, and lost itself in the cry of a red-tailed hawk circling above the high Texas plain.

Later on, folks would claim they’d felt Bull’s passing like a sudden chill on the March wind. But his son Will Tyler had felt nothing. Busy with morning chores, Will was unaware of his father’s death until he heard the shouts of the husky male nurse who came in every morning to get the old man out of bed and into his wheelchair.

Will knew at once what had happened. By the time his long strides carried him to the rambling stone ranch house, he’d managed to brace for what he would find. All the same, the sight of that once-powerful body lying rigid under the patchwork quilt, the lifeless blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, hit him like a kick in the gut. He’d lived his whole thirty-nine years in his father’s shadow. Now the old man was gone. But the shadow remained.

“Do you want me to call nine-one-one?” The young man was new to the ranch. Bull had gone through a parade of hired caregivers in the six years since a riding accident had shattered his spine, paralyzing his hips and legs.

“What for?” Will pulled the sheet over his father’s face. In the movies somebody would’ve closed those eyes. In real life, Will knew for a fact that it didn’t work.

“We’ll need to call somebody,” the nurse said. “The county coroner, maybe? They’ll want to know what killed him.”

Alcohol and pain pills,
Will surmised. But what the hell, there were protocols to be followed. “Fine, go ahead and call,” he said. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

Bernice Crawford, the plump, graying widow who’d been the Tylers’ cook and housekeeper since Will’s boyhood, met him in the hall. Tears were streaming down her apple-cheeked face. “Oh, Will! I’m so sorry!”

“I know.” Will searched for words of comfort for her. “Dad thought the world of you, Bernice.”

“He was a miserable old man,” she said. “You know that as well as I do. But he carried the burden God gave him, and now he’s free of it.”

Will gave her shoulder an awkward squeeze before he turned away and strode toward the front door. He needed to breathe fresh air. And he needed time to gather his thoughts.

He made it to the wide, covered porch before the raw reality slammed home. Setting his jaw, he gripped the rail and forced himself to breathe. His father was dead. He felt the void left by Bull’s passing—and the weight of responsibility for this ranch and everyone in it that was now his to shoulder alone. The morning breeze carried the smells of spring—thawing manure, sprouting grass, and restless animals. Hammer blows rang from the hollow beyond the barn, where the hands were shoring up the calving pens for the pregnant heifers that had been bred a week ahead of the older cows. The rest of the cattle that had wintered in the canyon would soon need rounding up for the drive to spring pasture above the escarpment on the Llano Estacado
—
the Staked Plain, given that name by early Spaniards because the land was so flat and desolate that they had to drive stakes in the ground to keep from losing their way.

As he looked down from the low rise where the house stood, Will’s gaze swept over the heart of the sprawling Rimrock Ranch—the vast complex of sheds, corrals, and barns, the hotel-like bunkhouse for unmarried hands, the adjoining cookhouse and commissary, and the line of neat brick bungalows for workers with families. To the east a shallow playa lake glittered pale aquamarine in the sunlight. It made a pretty sight, but the water was no good to drink. With the summer heat it would evaporate, leaving behind an ugly white patch of alkali where nothing would grow.

Will scowled up at the cloudless sky. Last summer’s drought had been a nightmare. If no rain fell, the coming summer could be even worse, with the grass turning to dust and the cattle having to be sold off early, at a pittance on the plummeting beef market.

Will had managed the ranch for the past six years and done it as competently as his father ever had. But even from his wheelchair Bull had been the driving spirit behind Rimrock. Only now that he was gone did Will feel the full burden of his legacy.

“Looks like we’ll be planning a funeral.” The dry voice startled Will before he noticed the old man seated in one of the rocking chairs with Tag, the ranch border collie, sprawled at his feet. Jasper Platt had been foreman since before Will was born. Now that rheumatism kept him out of the saddle, he was semiretired. But Will still relied on him. No one understood the ranch and everything on it, including the people, the way Jasper did.

“When did you find out?” Will asked.

“About the same time you did.” Jasper was whip spare and tough as an old saddle. His hair was an unruly white thatch, his skin burned dark as walnut below the pale line left by his hat. The joints of his fingers were knotted with arthritis.

“You’d best start phoning people,” he said. “Some of them, like Beau, will need time to get here.”

“I know.” Will had already begun a mental list. His younger brother, Beau, was out on the East Coast and hadn’t set foot on the ranch in more than a decade—not since he’d bolted to join the army after a big blowup with his father. The rest of the folks who mattered enough to call lived on neighboring ranches or twenty miles down the state highway in Blanco Springs, the county seat. Most of them could wait until after the date and time for the funeral had been set. But Will’s ex-wife, Tori, who lived in Blanco with their twelve-year-old daughter, Erin, would need to know right away. Erin would take the news hard. Whatever Bull had been to others, he was her grandpa.

Neither call would be easy to make. Beau was out of the army now and working for the government in Washington. He had kept them informed of his whereabouts, but an address and a couple phone numbers were about all Will knew about his brother’s life out East.

As for Tori—short for Victoria—she’d left Will eight years ago to practice law in town. Shared custody of their daughter had kept things civil between them. But the tension when they spoke was like thin ice on a winter pond, still likely to crack at the slightest shift.

The nearest mortuary was in Lubbock. He’d have to call them, too. They’d most likely want to pick up the body at the coroner’s.
The body.
Hell, what a cold, unfeeling process. Too bad they couldn’t just wrap the old man in a blanket and stash him in the Caprock like the Indians used to do. Bull would have liked that.

As if conjured by the thought of Indians, a solitary figure stepped out of the horse barn and stood for a moment, gazing across the muddy yard. Fourteen years ago, Sky Fletcher, the part-Comanche assistant foreman, had wandered onto the ranch as a skinny teenage orphan and stayed to prove himself as a man known across the state for his skill with horses.

“Does Sky know?” Will asked Jasper.

“He knows. And he said to tell you that when you’re ready, he’ll crank up the backhoe and dig the grave next to your mother’s.”

“Sky’s got better things to do.”

Jasper gave him a sharp glance. “Bull was good to that boy. He wants to help. Let him.”

“Fine. Tell him thanks.” Will looked back toward the barn, but Sky was no longer in sight.

Squaring his shoulders, Will took a couple of deep breaths and crossed the porch to the front door. It was time to face the truth that awaited him inside the house.