I looked up to see who'd come to my rescue.

Hope.

I blinked. Hope? What was she doing here?

Before I could warn her to get the h.e.l.l back, she brandished the long stick above her head like a Valkyrie poised for battle. "Which one of you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did it?"

No one uttered a peep.

"Somebody better start talking." Hope pointed the end of the stick at Bucky, jabbing him hard in the sternum. "You. Now. Talk. Why is my son dead?"

"I-I d-don't know."

"Liar!" She swung the stick so fast if Bucky hadn't ducked, his fat head would've been pulp. "Try again."

I'd never seen this side of my sister. It was as beautiful as it was scary.

"We didn't have nothing to do with Levi getting killed," Bucky said.

"Then why all the intimidation and s.h.i.t, huh? Why'd you act like you were gonna beat the c.r.a.p outta my sister if you haven't done nothing wrong?"

Randall blurted, "Because we're scared! And now she comes around asking the same questions we been asking each other-"

"Shut the f.u.c.k up, Meeks," Little Bear snarled.

Hope's shrill laugh could've shattered gla.s.s. "You should be scared. Of me. So help me G.o.d, if I find out one of you punks killed my son, I will track you down and beat you to death."

I moved to stand by Hope, poised to make an escape. Someone would notice us before too much longer, and, like Dawson, I'd rather avoid dealing with tribal cops.

"If you guys are telling the truth, and you didn't have anything to do with your friends ending up dead, I guess I'd worry if the secrets I was keeping are worth dying for. I'd be freaking out that I'd be the next one."

They had nothing to say to that either.

Hope warned, "Don't follow us. Stay right there until we're gone." She wielded the stick as we backed away.

We rode in silence to the Indian Health Services Hospital and parked in the visitors' lot.

An SUV towing a fishing boat screamed up to the emergency room entrance. I couldn't see what injury const.i.tuted an emergency, so out of habit my mind supplied all sorts of gruesome images involving fishhooks, fillet knives, and propellers.

I rolled my window down. The night air smelled stagnant: old sweat socks mixed with sewer gas and dead animals. "Thanks for coming to my rescue tonight."

Hope smiled slightly.

"How did you happen to stumble across me in Eagle River? When we're both miles from home."

"Does kinda smack of coincidence." She sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'm channeling John-John's psychic abilities. I just knew I needed to get away from Theo after supper."

Get away from lover boy? That was new.

"Whenever I'm on the rez, I'd swing by the rec center because Levi usually needed a ride home. Old habits die hard, I guess, and I noticed Daddy's truck. Then I heard you talking and saw those guys surrounding you. I ran back for a weapon."

Good thing she hadn't seen my gun. "Whether a fluke or divine karma, thanks."

"You're welcome." Hope settled her neck against the headrest.

"Is everything okay?"

"Not really."

"What's wrong?"

"I've been thinking about what Levi said, about the baby, before he . . . Maybe Theo is expecting me to take care of the baby on my own. I already did that once. Not something I want to go through again."

I knew little about her husband. During the few years she'd been married, before Mario died, I'd come home less than usual. "Mario wasn't around much?"

"Hardly ever. Sounds mean, but I was so d.a.m.n mad at him when he got killed in that accident. He didn't leave us money. Don't know what I would've done if Daddy hadn't given me the trailer. I had no other place to go. I couldn't tell Jake about Levi and take his charity."

I shivered, unnerved by the feeling I didn't know my sister at all.

"Know what's kind of funny, though?"

"What?"

"I always wanted to be like you. Leave here, leave Daddy. Start my life over away from the d.a.m.n ranch and the folks in town who always look at me with pity. 'Oh, that's Hope Gunderson. A horse killed the girl's mother when she was only three. And then, the poor little thing blew her best friend's head clean off when she was barely five. Such a tragedy.'"

Why had I thought Hope had it easier? A strange thought niggled. Maybe she wasn't the selfish one in our family.

"Now maybe I finally have the chance to leave."

"Do you want to?"

"I want to run as far as I can whenever I hear the people talking about me being a bad mother."

"Who? I'll give those self-righteous biddies a piece of my mind."

"It's okay, Mercy. Some of what they're saying is true. I know I didn't always do right by Levi."

"Hope-"

"I'm not making excuses. I loved him. He knew I loved him." Her voice was a raw whisper. "Lord, I loved that kid so much. My life isn't ever gonna be the same without my boy. My guts are tied up in knots every morning when I wake up and realize I'll never see his sweet face again."

My deep sigh resounded in the anguished quiet.

She reached for my hand and squeezed, but she didn't look at me. "You were starting to love him, too. That means a lot to me."

"I'll find out who did this to him. I swear."

"I know you will."

We held hands, but I couldn't tell if it was for her benefit or for mine.

Finally, Hope gathered herself and started the car. "I'll take you back to your truck and follow you home in case one of them boys gets a fool idea about doing the same thing. We crazy Gunderson women gotta stick together, don't we?"

"Yeah."

When had the tables turned and she'd become my ally? My protector?

It didn't matter. I was just glad I wasn't alone.

My morning yoga practice didn't offer me the usual sense of calm, which disturbed me on several levels. The last fifteen years I'd come to rely on yoga, not only to keep my muscles pliable, but also as a mental refuge where I existed only as deep breath and flowing poses.

Firing a gun gave me the same sense of otherworldliness. The repet.i.tion of loading clips. Reconfiguring. Firing. Replacing targets. Loading more clips. More firing. Then the smell of clean cotton and gun oil as I performed my cleaning ritual.

I could drag out my guns and complete my mental health regiment. Ooh. I could call it Yoga Zen and the Art of a.s.sa.s.sination. Maybe that's what I should do-make a DVD.

On the other hand, I hadn't done any shooting since before Levi's murder. Seemed a waste of time, trying to keep myself on top of my game, when the truth was I'd pretty much fallen to the bottom of the heap.

I'd put in my twenty. My choices were re-up for another four or get the h.e.l.l out. Contrary to popular myth, the U.S. government did not bar soldiers from retiring during wartime. Still, I dreaded making the phone call. I left a message for my CO with a personal update on my health condition, and requested she start the paperwork.

Paperwork. Ugh. I hated paperwork, and it was a reminder of another ch.o.r.e I'd put off: cleaning Dad's office.

I'd mostly avoided his sacred s.p.a.ce since his death. First, because it was an unG.o.dly mess. Second, it'd feel too much like snooping. I'd heard horror stories about the bizarre things adult children uncovered about their aged parents. I doubted Dad horded a stash of p.o.r.n. Or hid letters from a secret admirer.

Once, when I still believed in happily-ever-after, I asked Dad if he ever considered remarrying. His reply? Any woman would be a step down from my mother. He'd been a man of few words, so the potent ones always stuck with me.

The coffee was fairly fresh, so I reheated a mug and ventured into the mouth of the beast.

When I opened the door, grief hit me like a Bradley a.s.sault vehicle. The room smelled like Dad: the spicy scent of Red Man chewing tobacco, Old English aftershave, and newspapers. A trace of cow s.h.i.t. He'd never quite mastered wiping off his boots. After they'd taken his leg Sophie quit pestering him about it.

I braced my shoulders against the door and fought a p.r.i.c.kle of tears.

Dammit, Mercy, get ahold of yourself.

I forced myself across the room. Another wave of sadness tightened my gut when I saw the month on his desk blotter hadn't changed since March-the last time he'd been in here. I moved his monstrous office chair out of the corner and over to the desk. It'd nearly killed him to give it up after he'd become wheelchair bound.

My fingers traced the cracks in the seat. White stuffing stuck out like milkweed puffs. Grease stains darkened the tan leather headrest where Dad leaned back to "think" but most likely to sneak in a nap. d.a.m.n chair hadn't seen a can of WD-40 in years. The lever to adjust the height was busted, leaving it in the lowest position. When I squeaked up to the mahogany desk, I really felt I was playing grown-up.

I sighed. Where to start? Piles teetered on every horizontal surface. I grabbed a random file folder and opened it. Invoices from Nelson's for hay. Holy s.h.i.t. That's how much hay cost? I squinted and double-checked the date. That was the price of hay last fall.

Jake handled the day-to-day expenses and writing checks from the ranch account. Our accountant, Carol, managed the rest: payroll, filing taxes, and all the legal junk I knew nothing about. Saint Carol also paid my bills while I was overseas, not that I incurred many. Because of the war, I hadn't traveled much in recent years even if I was granted a rare leave, so I had one indulgence: my Viper.

Maintaining the ranch books was a tradition pa.s.sed down to the females who'd married into the Gunderson family. My mother, Sunny; my grandmother, Faith, before her; and my great-grandmother, Patience, before she took over the reins from my crazy great-great-grandmother, Grace. Bet she'd produced some creative numbers.

I made three piles. Keep. Throw away. And no clue. Most of the paperwork hit the trash bin. Receipts for cowboy boots from 1993? Newspaper clippings about rodeo results? A bull sale catalog from Montana?

One box of files dealt with cattle bought and sold. The lineage, both bull and heifer. Milk weight-gain ratios for the calves up to weaning. Grain weight-gain ratios for the calves after weaning. Feedlot weight gain and the sale prices.

It made my head spin. All this information needed to be logged in a computer program and the Gunderson Ranch brought into the twenty-first century.

You'd think I'd know this stuff, growing up on a big working cattle ranch. Not so. Kit McIntyre had been right about one thing: Dad had kept Hope and me sheltered from everything but the surface stuff. Now I wondered if my lack of interest in something so dear to his heart had hurt him.

I tackled the files on the left-hand side of his desk, which held the most recent bills and bank statements. Ten years ago I'd set up an emergency-cash fund for the ranch after Dad let it slip things were tight. Despite his pride, he agreed to borrow money from me rather than the county bank. Dad grew up hearing stories about the dirty '30s and he didn't really trust banks, so he also squirrel-holed a chunk of cash in the safe, just in case the banks went bust again.

No one knew about the financial arrangement but us. I'd never demanded an accounting of how he'd spent the funds. Yet seeing that account $85,000 less than the last time I'd checked made my eyes bug out of my head.

No doubt we were cash poor. Thank G.o.d the county provided his health insurance and he'd purchased a modest life insurance policy before his diabetes diagnosis or we'd be in big financial trouble. He'd spent two months in a nursing home. I feared he'd been sentient enough to know he hadn't been dying on his beloved ranch.

As I stacked the last file, I noticed a manila envelope sticking out from under the desk blotter. An oversight on Dad's part? Or had he hidden it for a specific reason? My heart pounded a little as I opened it.

Nothing incriminating, just loose paper, handwritten notes and business letters. The first note scrawled in his precise penmanship read: The Swamp Rats-investment company based in Florida Had the Swamp Rats contacted Dad? Or had he contacted them?

No. He'd never sell. Wouldn't even consider it.

Would he?

I flipped to the next page. For several seconds I blinked in disbelief. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. I tracked the legal gibberish on a contract with a Montana real estate a.s.sessment firm to a.s.sess the value of the Gunderson Ranch.

Dated six months before he'd died.

G.o.ddammit. Why hadn't Dad told me? And if he'd paid for the a.s.sessment, where was it? I knew it hadn't been in the stack of legal doc.u.ments dealing with the estate. What was this place worth? My best guess-somewhere around $30 million-was probably way short of the mark.

I carefully picked through the rest of the paperwork. Nothing more.

My coffee had gone cold. In just a couple of hours I'd basically cleared the desk. I stood, stretched, and looked around the cluttered room. It wouldn't take long to get this s.p.a.ce spic and span. Dad wasn't big on sentimentality.

Six pictures decorated his desk. A wedding photo. Not a stiff pose of the couple poised on the altar-rather, a close-up of young Sunny and Wyatt, gazing into each other's eyes, smiling like crazy-in-love fools. Another one of him and me, posing next to the eight-point buck I'd shot the year I'd turned twelve. Hope's senior photo. A pic of me in my uniform after graduation from basic training. A snapshot of him and Hope; she cradled a red-faced baby Levi, and he grinned with grandfatherly pride. Levi's most recent school picture.

Anger supplanted my melancholy. Levi had his whole life ahead of him and someone snuffed it out. Why was I sitting in this stuffy office when I should've been out finding answers?

While I stewed, the front doorbell rang. Weird. No one used the front door.

I opened it to see Kit McIntyre soiling my welcome mat. He didn't bother trying to charm me. "Can I come in and talk to you?"

"About?"

"A couple things. Please. I won't stay long."

Stupid inbred midwestern hospitality: I let him in. He headed for the kitchen. By the size of his belly he was probably trolling for Sophie's famous gingersnap cookies.

"So, why are you here?"

"Lots of people are talking about what happened the day of Levi's funeral. When you run off them out-of-state guys."

"They didn't show any respect for my family. Someone needed to let them know we don't put up with that."

Kit nodded vigorously. "I know what you're saying. I had the same problem with those folks who bought the old Jackson place. Not a friendly one in the lot. I stopped there. Even though they bought the place from me last year, they ain't got the time of day for me."

I frowned. I couldn't imagine they'd be reselling so soon. "Why were you there?" Iris had kept hounding me about heading over and seeing the damage they'd done in hopes I'd sign her pet.i.tion, but I'd put social visits on the back burner.