Chapter 5 - Tactical Maneuvers
The Ellis Ranch in the Texas Hill Country was a different kind of country from the high, cold peaks of Montana. Here, the land was wide, flat, and covered in scrub oak and limestone ridges, smelling of dry grass, horse sweat, and the sharp, clean scent of cedar. It was a place where things were built to last, where the fences were made of heavy cedar posts and five-strand barbed wire that didn't give an inch when the northers blew through.
We arrived at dawn on Friday.
My father’s house was a simple, sprawling ranch style made of native stone and heavy timber, with a deep porch that looked out over the breeding pastures where three hundred head of foundation-quarter horses grazed.
I carried June into the house, her small face warm against my neck. My father’s housekeeper, Maria—a woman who had helped raise me after my mother passed away twenty years ago—met us at the door with a basin of warm water and a fresh pot of chicory coffee.
"She’s beautiful, Nora," Maria whispered, tears filling her eyes as she looked at June’s perfect, tiny face. "She looks just like you did when the Colonel brought you home from the hospital in Germany."
"She’s stronger than I was, Maria," I said, setting June down in the wooden bassinet that had been mine when I was an infant. "She survived a Pembroke welcome party."
My father walked into the kitchen, his Stetson hanging from the peg by the door. He had already been out to the stables, his boots carrying the clean, grassy scent of the horse barn. He sat down at the heavy oak table, his fingers tracing the rim of his coffee mug.
"Wesley’s father called my cell three times while you were crossing the state line, Nora," my father said, his voice quiet. "He’s desperate. He offered to sign over the title of the northern pasture to our family trust if we drop the CID investigation."
"He doesn't understand how the military works, does he?" I said, sitting opposite him. "He thinks because he can buy a county commissioner, he can buy a Department of Defense audit."
"They’re used to dealing with people who have a price, Nora," the Colonel said, his eyes narrowing as he looked out the window at the horses. "They don't understand that some people only have a duty. I’ve already spoken to the Judge Advocate General's office. Since Wesley used your secure military laptop to file those false state land-clearance forms, the federal prosecutor is looking at a charge of unauthorized access to a government computer. That’s a ten-year federal felony, independent of the timber theft."
"He was trying to save seventy thousand dollars in state environmental fees," I said, shaking my head. "He told me he was just filing a routine agricultural update. I trusted him, Dad. That was my mistake."
"You trusted your husband, Nora," my father said, reaching across the table to cover my hand with his massive, calloused palm. "That’s not a mistake. That’s honor. His betrayal is his own burden to carry. But now, we have to make sure he doesn't carry our daughter down with him."
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A soft, rhythmic knock on the back door interrupted us. It was Caleb, the head wrangler. He looked serious, his hand resting on the wooden frame of the door.
"Colonel," Caleb said. "We’ve got a car coming up the main drive. It’s a rental with Montana plates. Looks like the boy decided to follow his daughter."
