NO.

MERCY.

A MYSTERY.

LORI ARMSTRONG.

This book is lovingly dedicated to all the women in my family, South Dakota born and bred-past and present-who know a thing or two about resilience....

"Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff."

WILL ROGERS.

PROLOGUE.

In the arid summer heat on prairie rangeland, a dead body doesn't so much rot as it becomes petrified. The blazing sun and dry wind burn the most resilient flesh into dried meat.

What the sun hadn't cooked the animals had feasted on. A sunken hollow where the stomach had been. Shriveled flaps of skin resembling jerky hung from the jaw and cheekbones. The eye sockets were empty holes. The final indignity? The crotch of the athletic shorts were ripped away to reach the soft meat of the s.e.x organs.

Poor son of a b.i.t.c.h had been emasculated before he'd had a chance to become a man.

A hot breeze swirled chalky dust motes and scents of decay.

Black Air Jordan athletic shoes saved the boy's toes the fate of his fingers: gnawed off clean down to the bone. Reddish-black hair floated loose around his skull, bits of leaves and insects trapped in the dulled strands. Without lips to hide behind, the crooked teeth stuck out like yellowed piano keys. The body hadn't been exposed long enough to bleach the bones white, but it'd been out here long enough to disintegrate into just another forgotten animal carca.s.s.

Dust to dust.

Pine-tree-dotted hills and valleys of grayish gumbo made up the barren landscape. Heat mirages shimmered in the distance-a cruel illusion. There'd been no standing water in these parts for years.

The spinal column listed to the left. Like the kid's neck had been snapped.

Despite the sun beating down, a chill rippled through the air.

So how had Albert Yellow Boy ended up in the middle of nowhere? What were the odds a couple of busy ranch hands would stumble over his body in this remote section of fallow grazing land?

Slim.

Had that been the intention?

More voices buzzed like angry gnats. Whispering. Arguing. Accusing.

Eerily loud caws echoed from the canyon. Bickering ceased, returning focus to tending the rituals of the dead.

ONE.

One week later.

Listening to bawling cows headed for the slaughterhouse is a s.h.i.tty way to start a day.

I slammed the front window shut and crawled back between the cool cotton sheets. When my father's phantom voice nagged me for sleeping in, I jerked the quilt over my head.

Go away, Dad. I'm too d.a.m.n old to feel guilty about not getting up at the crack of dawn to do ch.o.r.es.

It took me a while to get back to sleep. When I did drift off, the scorching summer afternoon from thirty years past came rushing back, dreamlike, except it hadn't been a dream: "Momma had a baby and its head popped off." I sited my target and pulled the trigger.

Crack.

An immediate pain-filled screech morphed into prairie silence.

My heart thumped. I held the Remington tight even after the recoil pad bit into my shoulder. Heard the hollow click as the spent bra.s.s cartridge ejected out the side and c.h.i.n.ked on the rocky ground.

Bluish smoke eddied around me. Gravel dug into my forearms. Powdery gray dirt coated my sunburned skin even as gnats buzzed around my ears and inside my nose.

I didn't care.

Exhilarated, I eyed the headless body through the scope and surveyed the b.l.o.o.d.y chunks of meat spread across the soil in the ultimate buzzard's buffet.

"Got ya dead-on, ya dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I whispered to the decimated prairie dog, my tone reminiscent of Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Dad chuckled, shifting his position on the slope. "Your mom'd have a conniption fit if she heard you talkin' like that."

"Then it's a good thing she's not here."

"Yeah." He squinted at me, finding something on my face that made the laughter bleed out of his eyes. "Real good thing."

A clement breeze stirred the smell of sage, skunkweed, and hot dirt. Scents I'd forevermore a.s.sociate with death.

He eased back on his haunches and stood, wincing. The lack of circulation in his legs was getting worse, though he tried to be a tough guy and hide it from me. I let him. When he held out his big hand to help me up, I let him do that, too.

"Come on, sport. Let's see what damage you done. You ain't a bad shot-"

"For a girl," I supplied.

He spit a stream of tobacco juice next to my ropers. Just like my hero, Josey. He looked me dead in the eye. "Anyone who ever says that to you, Mercy Gunderson, is a fool."

I woke with a start. At least the combat flashbacks had tapered off, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a decent night's sleep. Maybe I should fill that prescription for Ambien next time I was at the VA.

After I'd finished my yoga practice, I wandered outside. The thermometer read 87 degrees. In the shade. I snagged a Crystalyx feed cap off the hook by the door and detoured to the activity by the barn.

The semitruck was backed up to the loading gate. Flies buzzed everywhere. Familiar, pungent smells of dirt and manure hung in the dry air. Most people gagged at the odors, but I'd gotten used to them again, the scents of home. I hoisted myself atop the fence and watched the action unfold.

Our two hired men, TJ and Luke, were on horseback, herding the animals. The ranch foreman, Jake, culled the ones he wanted and sent the others out of the penning area with a slap on the flank.

One stubborn cow refused to move.

Jake bent down and spoke directly into the floppy ear.

The tail swished and then the cow slowly got in line.

I laughed. How cool. We had our very own cow whisperer. I would've zapped it with a cattle prod until it bellered and trotted up the ramp like a good little doggie.

Another obvious difference between Jake and me.

After the metal door to the chute banged shut, and the semi rattled down the rutted driveway, the foreman ambled toward me.

Jake Red Leaf had run my father's ranch for the last twenty-odd years. Jake wasn't a grizzled old Indian rancher, but fairly young, around forty-five. Despite spending years outside in the harsh elements, he'd aged well and was a good-looking man, so it surprised me he was still single.

What didn't surprise me, or anyone else, was that Jake knew the day-to-day operations of the Gunderson Ranch better than I did. Better than I'd ever wanted to.

I shifted my position atop the rickety fence. The wooden slats sc.r.a.ped my palms. I'd probably spend half the d.a.m.n night digging slivers out.

"Nice to see you out in the fresh air and sunshine."

"Yeah, 'cause I so don't get enough of it being stationed in the world's biggest sandbox."

Ignoring my barb, Jake tipped back his battered Resistol and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the heel of his hand. His eyes caught mine. "How's Hope today?"

"Your grandma says she checked on her at seven and Hope was still in bed."

"Was Levi around?"

"I doubt it. Why? Was he supposed to be working today?"

"Yep. Promised to help me load cattle."

Levi was my younger sister's fifteen-year-old son. As much as I'd adored him as a baby, his wide-eyed wonder, his drooly smiles, his gurgling coos of contentment whenever I held him, these days he steered clear of me. If his recent behavior was any indication, the kid was about half a step from ending up in the juvenile court system.

Hope blamed Levi's bad behavior on Levi's daddy dying in a trucking accident when the boy was six. I blamed Levi's bad behavior on Levi. Other kids had lost a parent at a young age-Hope and myself included. Hope believed in giving Levi free reign. My mind-set? If Jake or one of the other ranch hands took a horse rein to him, he'd straighten up in a h.e.l.luva hurry.

However, my opinion held no weight. I'd been an absent aunt most of Levi's life, as well as an absent sister. Add in the fact I've never given birth? Well, I'd be better off talking to a fence post.

"You act surprised he didn't show," I said.

"Not really. He's been runnin' with a rough crowd from the rez lately. Chet said he saw Levi and a buncha boys in the back of a pickup headed up toward that abandoned mine a coupla weeks back." Jake placed a worn Tony Lama on the bottom rung and propped his muscled forearms on the fence.

"Who were the boys?"

"Dunno. Some punks. Someone oughta talk to him about it. Especially in light of the fact we found his buddy Albert chewed up as coyote food in our pasture last week."

"Count me out for initiating that conversation. Hope has never listened to me, and she's completely blind where that kid is concerned."

"Funny. Your dad used to say the same thing. Of course, Wyatt wore those same rose-colored gla.s.ses when it came to his only grandson."

A black veil dropped over me as if a hail cloud covered the sun. I released a slow breath. "Don't know if I'll ever get used to hearing Dad referred to in the past tense. Maybe-"

"Stop beatin' yourself up. Nothin' you coulda done."

"I can't believe I wasn't here."

"He wouldn't have known if you had been."

"That doesn't make me feel less guilty, Jake."

He c.o.c.ked his head and looked up at me. "You talked to anybody about it?"

"Like who?"

"Like one of them doctors at the VA hospital. Unci says you been goin' there since you got back from Iraq, eh?"

d.a.m.n Sophie Red Leaf and her big mouth. Had she ever considered maybe I didn't want everyone to know about my health problems? Especially her grandson?

I didn't respond. Instead, I tipped my face to the heavens. My eyes traced a long white vapor trail bisecting the vivid blue sky. I half wished I was on that plane, gazing wistfully at the patchwork of fields and farms from thirty thousand feet.

"Mercy? You okay?"

"Yeah. I'll see you later." I'd rather be skinned alive than talk about my feelings and failings, with Jake of all people.

I hopped off the fence. A cloud of ginger-colored dirt puffed around my bare ankles as I crossed the expanse of gravel and weeds known as the "yard" on my way to the house.

Our farmhouse was built in the 1930s, one of those "kit" houses sold by Sears Roebuck, where everything from the roof trusses to the oak trim was shipped out on railcars, transferred to flatbed trucks, and then the house was a.s.sembled onsite. Ours wasn't a typical one-level ranch bungalow, but a big two-story Victorian/craftsmanstyle hybrid. Five bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, plus an enormous attic that ran the entire length of the house. The main floor boasted a good-sized kitchen, a formal dining room and living room, plus a full bathroom complete with a claw-foot bathtub, a parlor restyled as an office, and a sun porch used as a storage/laundry room.

Over the years, the Gundersons installed numerous updates. The last, when we'd added a handicapped-accessible bedroom and bathroom on the bottom floor, along with a separate entrance with a wheelchair ramp for my dad. Luckily the doorways downstairs were already wide enough to accommodate his wheelchair. For some reason that hadn't made Dad happy.

I'd always found it strange the front door faced the road, but the covered porch with the entrance to the back door was the main entrance. Very rarely did we-or any friends visiting us-use the front door.

During my teen years, the size of our home embarra.s.sed me. Most of my friends lived in ancient trailers or tiny farm shacks. But Dad claimed since we owned the biggest acreage in the county, it only made sense we lived in the biggest house.

Pebbles shifted beneath my sandals as I pa.s.sed the abandoned chicken coop. White chunks of paint were peeling off the side panels and around the deformed round-topped door. I'd have to paint the d.a.m.n thing soon or hire someone else to do it. My focus shifted to the buckled boards on the machine shed, darkened from weathered gray to moldy black. Another project requiring my attention.

Hoo-ray. Life on a ranch was never-ending, backbreaking work, which was why I'd shaken the cows.h.i.t off my boots and moved far away as soon as I was legal.

The sun seared my skin. As I gazed across the flat, open area between the hulking house and the half-dozen outbuildings-metal, wood, antique, and new-I reconnected with my eighteen-year-old self and the realization I'd been trapped in a life I hadn't chosen.

So how was it I'd traveled to all those exotic locales of my youthful daydreams only to find myself back here on the ranch? Facing responsibilities I didn't want, with a sinking feeling I'd gone no place at all?