Chip was a dick. He was perfectly capable of getting his own nails, but he liked to order Cade around. Especially when there was someone close by to listen. Cade had learned to bite his tongue and just do what the prick wanted. He knew the type of man Chip was: a bully. It was best not to show any emotion around bullies. That was what they fed on: emotions and reactions.
“You bet.” Cade set down his hammer and passed by Chip as he stood in the doorway. Chip and a few other guys were working on an adjacent building, where they were expanding an existing small kitchen along with a large mess hall and meeting room. The new construction lifted Cade’s spirits. Some people said Eagle’s Nest was drying up and dying, but according to Tom McDonald, he had work for lots of men and wanted the facilities to house them.
Cade’s current project would sleep ten men. Four bunkhouses were already built, and he’d heard there were plans for ten more. He wondered if he could get construction work for some of his friends. But why did McDonald need to build so many bunkhouses? There wasn’t that much to do on the ranch. One guy handled the small herd of cattle and the few pigs. Cade didn’t see work that justified housing so many men.
But a lot of men lived on the isolated ranch. As far as Cade could tell, they primarily talked a lot. The construction crew was currently five guys, including him and Chip, and all five of them went back to their own homes at night. But he’d seen a dozen unfamiliar pickups come and go during the weeks he’d been here, men intent on meeting with McDonald in his small old farmhouse.
They were out-of-towners. Idaho, Montana, and Nevada plates. A few Oregon plates. Men who ignored him for the most part. Occasionally McDonald would bring a few men to take a tour of the bunkhouses and mess hall. They’d meet with the men who lived in the bunkhouses and go off on foot tours of the ranch’s woods. Perhaps McDonald plans to start logging? Sometimes they’d stand around and nod approvingly as McDonald pointed out the sites for the next few bunkhouses. Cade would stand out of the way and watch as the men examined his work. It didn’t bother him; he knew his work was solid.
All the men were salt-of-the-earth types. Heavy boots, Wrangler jeans, cowboy hats or caps, and serious faces. They didn’t smile. They scratched their beards or scowled, their heavy eyebrows creating a solid line across weathered foreheads.
Were they looking for jobs?
Cade didn’t understand their presence. Maybe they were investors in McDonald’s plan for his ranch. But judging by the age of the pickups and the stress in their faces, they didn’t feel like the type of men with thousands to spare. So Cade nodded respectfully and kept his ears peeled. He’d already made the mistake of asking Chip what plans McDonald had for the new buildings. That question had drawn spit aimed at his boots and a sneer, along with, “None of your business. You’re getting paid, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then shut up and do your work. Consider yourself lucky to have work.”
Cade took his advice. Mouth shut. Ears open.
He slid open the heavy door to the shed and headed toward the shelves where he knew nails were stored. He grabbed a few boxes and turned toward the door but stopped as an odd odor reached his nose. Sort of sweet, but unfamiliar. In the poor light he squinted at the back of the shed, noticing a stack of wooden boxes he’d never seen before. Someone had tossed a weathered canvas blanket over them, but the far ends of the boxes weren’t covered, showing dovetailed corners. He lifted a corner of the blanket and read the side of one. DuPont Explosives.
He dropped the blanket and spun around, striding out of the shed.
Dynamite?
When he was a child, he’d seen similar boxes in his grandfather’s old barn, and his father had ordered him to stay away from them. So of course, he’d looked inside the first moment he could. Old, fading paper-wrapped sticks. Specks of a drying sticky clear substance that oozed from under the paper.
It’d been disappointing and thrilling at the same time.
As far as he knew, dynamite wasn’t around anymore. The boxes in McDonald’s shed looked nearly as ancient as the boxes in his grandfather’s barn. Decades ago it’d been normal to use on a ranch. In fact, he remembered his grandfather saying he’d been able to buy dynamite at the feed store. Cade was certain those days were long gone. But no doubt it was still found in forgotten corners of old-timers’ barns.
He walked across the gravel to the slow-growing mess hall, the boxes of nails in his hands, his brain spinning, wondering where the dynamite had come from. He’d been in the shed last week and was positive nothing had been in that corner. Tires sounded on the gravel, and he watched a newer Chevy stop near the house. It was clean and shiny, unlike most of the visitors’ trucks. The man got out, glanced in Cade’s direction, and then disappeared into the home without knocking.
Cade blinked, his stride slowing.
Was that Kaylie’s uncle Owen?
He took another look at the truck, spotting the local high school bumper sticker, and remembered Kaylie had cousins who attended the school.
Thinking hard, he remembered he’d seen the truck on the property another time or two, but hadn’t seen the driver. He’d met Kaylie’s uncle a few times in town. His father knew him from way back, although Cade had never mentioned that to Kaylie. It was expected that most people knew one another around Eagle’s Nest. It was the norm, not the exception.
Cade silently delivered the nails to Chip, who accepted them with a smirk. “Hey, give Mitch a hand for a minute. He needs someone to hold those boards.”
Across the room Mitch glanced back with surprise on his face, clearly balancing a board with no problem. Cade said nothing but went over and braced the far end for the man, giving him an I-just-do-what-I’m-told look. Mitch nodded and said nothing as he hammered the board into place.
Cade handed him the next one and braced the end.
“Thanks, Cade,” Mitch muttered. “You can head back to the bunkhouse now.”
Ignoring Chip, who was futzing around with some electrical work, Cade walked as quietly as possible out the door, hoping to escape Chip’s notice. Cade got more work done when he was out of Chip’s sight. Chip had an overwhelming need to order him around, assign him useless tasks, and keep him from finishing the work he was supposed to do.
Outside the mess hall, he nearly bumped into Tom McDonald and Owen Kilpatrick. He nodded at both men, making brief eye contact, and hurried toward the growing bunkhouse.
The flash of recognition in Owen Kilpatrick’s gaze stayed with him.