Aidan looked down, saw the name and all of his father’s blood that had seeped into the ground beneath him, and then staggered away and threw up.
Leigh had set aside her grief. It was rage carrying her through this tragedy, and when Aidan got sick she strode after him, impatience in every step.
“We have no time for this,” she said, as she grabbed his ponytail and held it back.
Even in anger, she was tending her own as she held his hair back away from his face while the spasms rolled through him.
Aidan took a deep breath and then straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry, it just... I can’t believe... Why, Mama? Why?”
“I don’t know, but I will find out which one of my siblings did this, and I will make them sorry they were ever born.”
The three brothers stared at her then, magnificent in her grief with the glare of the sunlight behind her, and her hair all wide and tangled around her scratched and bloody face. She looked like a warrior woman from another time.
Michael glanced at Samuel and then pointed at his father’s body.
“You two take the pictures. I’m going to try calling the constable.”
Leigh stood to one side, watching the proceedings without voicing the obvious.
Life as they’d known it was over.
*
Walter Riordan was in his twenty-fourth year of serving as county constable. He’d seen a lot of the sad side of life, but when he got a phone call from Michael Youngblood and heard the details of what had happened, his heart sank. Incidents like this one were how blood feuds began. Michael gave him the GPS readings from his phone, which gave Riordan a clear location.
“It will take us at least thirty minutes to get there,” Riordan said.
Michael looked back at his mother, who was standing guard over their father’s body.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he said, and disconnected, then ran back to the scene. “I spoke to Constable Riordan. It will be at least thirty minutes, maybe more, before they can get here.”
Leigh thought about Jesse alone at their house.
“Samuel, please call Bella and ask her to go stay with Jesse.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and then started walking until he had enough bars on his phone to make a call.
Bella answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” he said.
“Are you okay? Did you find out what happened?”
He tried to say it without breaking down, but the truth was too appalling.
“Daddy’s dead. Mama found him in the woods, shot in the back. He scratched the name ‘Wayne’ in the dirt before he died.”
Bella gasped, and then started crying.
“Who’s Wayne? Why would someone kill your daddy?”
“Mama says it’s someone from her family. She’s gone all quiet. I’ve never seen her like this. It’s nothing but pure rage.”
“What can I do?”
“Mama asked if you would please go to the house and stay with Jesse until we can all get back.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll leave right now. Oh, Sammie, this just breaks my heart. I’m so sorry.”
“So am I, honey, so am I. I’ll see you there later.”
He disconnected and hurried back to his mother. “She’s on her way. What do you need me to do?” he asked.
She pointed into the woods.
“Take Big Red. See if you can find where the killer stood. It has to be in that general direction. If Red can catch the scent, set him on it and see how far he’ll take you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Samuel said, and ran for the dog, then headed into the woods as Michael and Aidan called their wives with the news. Like Bella, the other two daughters-in-law headed to the home place to be with Jesse.
It didn’t take Samuel long to find his daddy’s footprints because he recognized the boot tread, and even less time to find where the killer had stood when he shot him. He searched around the area and found an ejected cartridge. Rather than pick it up and possibly ruin a fingerprint, he marked the spot with a small pile of rocks, took a picture of the footprints, then set Big Red on the scent and held tight to the leash as the dog headed down the mountain.
It was easy to follow the trail because the killer had been running and making no attempt to hide his tracks. Samuel took note of the length of the stride as he paused more than once to take pictures.
Within ten minutes Red stopped and yipped. He’d lost the scent. Samuel followed him as he began circling the area, trying to pick it up again. The ground was hard and rocky beneath the trees, and when Samuel finally saw tire tracks from a motorcycle, his heart sank. The shooter was gone. The hunt was over. He pulled in the leash and then stopped.
“That’s good, boy. That’s good,” he said, patting the big hound. “Let’s go back. Let’s go find Mollie.”