tapped the fingers of one hand on the arm of her chair. “Oh, maybe to convince me that I need to sell my land to you after all?”
Caryn rose to stand behind her chair, so she could look down on Dana. “You really should attend one of our services. You seem to be holding a lot of anger inside, young lady.”
Dana rose, too. “I’m angry. That’s a fact. But I’m not one to hold anything inside. And I’m warning you, if I find one more dead head of cattle on my land, I’ll have Sheriff Radford investigate this whole place.”
With that she turned to leave, but Caryn’s shout halted her.
“Miss Barlow, you’ve just made a grave error in misjudging me.”
Dana turned in time to see the look of pure malice shaping the woman’s flawless complexion. “Are you threatening me?”
“I am the law here,” the woman said in a rasping voice. “How dare you talk to me that way!”
“I’m not one of your groupies!” Dana shouted back, her own anger and frustration matching that of the other woman. “You don’t fool me, and you’ll never get my land.”
Caryn’s cackle echoed over the distant sound of thunder. “Oh, yes, I will. You’ll see. Soon, you and that retarded brother of yours will be out on the side of the road.”
Dana could take anything anyone dished out, but nobody picked on her brother. Stepping back into the polished foyer, she glared across the marble floor at Caryn. “You stay away from Stephen. He’s just a boy. He’s never done anything to you or any of your people.”
Caryn’s smile was triumphant. Dana guessed she’d been looking for a weak spot. The woman’s next words proved it.
“If you care about your special little brother, you’ll be careful. I don’t take to false accusations.”
Dana pointed a finger at the stone-faced woman. “And I don’t take to people destroying what’s mine. If I see any of your people on my property, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.” And forgive me, Lord, for even suggesting that.
With that, she turned and slammed the glass door, rattling the thick panes against their heavy brass hinges.
A storm was brewing. Dana knew enough about Kansas weather to realize it was going to be an ugly one. She could hear the echo of distant thunder miles away, carrying through the lifting wind. She was a mile from town, though, and if she hurried, she could get those Ruby Runners she’d promised Stephen, and maybe have a quick word with the sheriff.
Actually, storm or not, she wasn’t ready to head back to the farm yet. Finding Otto dead, and then the confrontation with that horrible woman, had left her too keyed up to face the mounting problems her little bit of land was causing her. If she didn’t do something quick, they’d lose everything and then Caryn would come in and take Dana’s property. Dana couldn’t let that happen. She’d fought too hard since her parents’ deaths to give up now. And she didn’t like being bullied.
At first she’d thought about selling and moving to Kansas City. She’d majored in business administration at Kansas State, so she had the credentials to find a decent job in the big city, and her sweetheart from high school, Tony Martin, was already there and earning a good living as a computer analyst. They’d been engaged and had big plans to marry and move to Kansas City, until Dana’s parents had died. Tony hadn’t wanted the burden of raising a hyper preteen with learning problems and the mannerisms of a kindergartner.
Now Stephen depended on her, and he loved the farm. She hadn’t wanted to uproot him, so based on some advice from the local bank president, and after consulting with Stephen’s doctors, she’d made a decision to keep the farm. And had instantly gone into debt by borrowing money to raise enough cattle to get a small herd going. She had fifty head of prime Brangus heifers, steers, calves and two bulls—make that one bull now.
Still in shock, she couldn’t believe Otto was gone. She didn’t need this right now, not when things were just starting to turn around. Pulling the old rickety Chevy into the parking place by the general store, Dana glanced at the erratic sky, then rushed inside out of the wind. She’d get the shoes, then go talk to the sheriff.
Not that that would do much good. Sheriff Radford was getting old and he just didn’t care much about random crimes against animals. People didn’t fare much better, but then nothing much more exciting than a rowdy cowboy at the pool hall around the corner ever stirred the mundane daily life of this prairie town. But still, a dead prize-breeding bull wasn’t exactly something to turn the other cheek about.
“Honey, you look like you got the weight of the world on your pretty shoulders,” Emma Prager said from behind the counter and her ample bosom. “What’s eating my little Dana?”
“Just about everything,” Dana said, afraid if she laid her burdens at kind Emma’s matronly feet, she’d burst into tears. “I lost Otto today, Emma. Somebody shot him.”
“Goodness-a-mercy!” Emma exclaimed, bringing up the head of the one other paying customer in the cluttered store, and catching the attention of the regulars at the dominoes table in the small café at the back. “What an awful thing to happen, and you trying to hang on to that place with every ounce of gumption you got.” Heaving a heavy breath, she came around the counter. “I do declare, what’s the world coming to! Did you tell old Radford yet?”
“I’m headed over there now,” Dana said, spotting the blazing red Ruby Runner emblem on a nearby shoebox. Emma had promised to hold the athletic shoes for her. “I came by to get our Ruby Runners—I thought maybe it’d cheer Stephen up, since I promised him I’d get them today.”
“Got ’em right here,” Emma said, turning her bulk to get the pair of shoes she’d saved for Dana. “One size fourteen youth. That child is steady growing, I tell you!”
Emma’s straight, scrawny husband, Frederick, came plowing through the curtained door leading to their living quarters in the back of the cluttered store, the German still in his accent coming out strongly. “Get you home, little girl. Tornado’s a-coming. Spotted it due west about ten miles from here.”
“She don’t have time,” Emma said, dropping the package she was about to hand Dana. “We gotta get in the cellar!”
Everyone started running toward the back of the old store. Confused, Dana searched for her package on the counter at about the same time the other shopper, a young man in grubby jeans and a blue T-shirt, grabbed a similar package and fled out into the storm before Emma could herd him around. The two old-timers who’d been heavy into their dominoes game sprinted for Frederick’s storm cellar.
Dana looked around, then grabbed the only package left on the counter. But Dana didn’t follow Emma and Frederick. “Stephen!” she said, her voice rising. “He’s at home with Mrs. Bailey. I have to get back!”
“He knows what to do,” Frederick shouted over the roar of the approaching storm. “You come in the cellar with us.”
“I can’t,” Dana replied, hoping, praying that Stephen and the frail neighbor woman would be able to get in the cellar and lie down under the blankets they kept down there for just such emergencies.
There was no time for anything else but prayer. The twister was sending its calling card, sucking the old general store into a vortex of rumbling fury. Dana ran
