why’d you have to go and do that?” Colt pouted. “We was gonna take it to school.”
“We were going to take it—and since school doesn’t start for another week—no, no and no.”
“You’re mean!” Colt kicked a dirt clump near the toe of his boot.
“But I love you.” Sometimes, Effie silently added with secret smile. Motherhood had never been easy—her twins had been a challenge from day one. “How about you get in the house and see if Grandma needs help with Cassidy?”
Colt scrunched his face. “We don’t wanna go inside. Grandma’s always watchin’ her stupid soap boperas, and Cass is boring.”
“Go!” Effie pointed toward the back door. “If Grandma doesn’t need help, clean your room.”
With the twins grumbling and moping their way into the house, Effie scanned the horizon for the odd sight that had started all of this. Once Colt had his boots back on, she’d intended to send the boys off to scout the situation, but she could now plainly see a chestnut with its rider hunched in the saddle a good hundred yards north of the house.
The four-wheeler was busted, and it would take longer to saddle her trusty paint, Lulu, than it would to walk, so Effie tugged the brim of her straw cowboy hat lower to shade against the sun, then trudged through thick weeds and grasses, dotted with occasional cactus and yucca. They’d had surprisingly good rain throughout the summer, which meant her herd of thirty Angus was fat and happy.
They sold them off as needed for extra income.
The closer she came to the man, the more obvious it became that he was in trouble, Effie started to run.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” By the time she reached him and his horse, she was out of breath and sweat drenched. The sun’s heat pressed her shoulders like malevolent hands.
The stranger was unconscious.
“Sir?” She shook him. Looked as though he might have tried using a rope to lash himself into the saddle, but it now hung loose. If his boot heels hadn’t been stuck in the stirrups, he’d have fallen off. Is he dehydrated?
No. A nearly full water bottle hung from the saddle’s horn.
His horse neighed, its eyes wide with panic.
“It’s all right, boy.” Knowing she needed to get this man to a hospital, Effie took the horse by the reins, guiding him toward the house as fast as she could manage.
She didn’t slow until she reached the yard’s gate, and even then, she hollered, “Colt! Remington! Mabel!” Please, God, let them hear her through the open window screens.
All three came running. Her grandmother carried six-month-old Cass on her hip.
“Whoa!” the twins cried, racing to her.
“What happened to him?” Colt asked.
“Don’t know.” Effie led the man’s horse into the only slightly cooler shade alongside the barn. “I need to call 911.” Never had she wished more for the cell phone she’d left back at the house.
“Look at his hand.” Remington pointed. “It’s all puffy.”
Effie paused a moment to look. The man’s fingers had swollen to the point that his wedding ring would need to be cut off. Twin puncture wounds oozed a nasty mix of clear fluid and blood. She’d seen similar marks on a horse, and then only because she’d witnessed the rattlesnake strike.
She took off running toward the house.
“What’s wrong with him, Mom?” Colt called after her.
“Snakebite,” she heard Mabel say.
No doubt from the heat and excitement, just as Effie reached the front porch, Cassidy began to cry.
* * *
MARSH LANGTREE DRIFTED in and out of a strange new world.
His son, Tucker, was still alive, but older—and somehow there were two of him. A baby wouldn’t stop crying. And then there was an angel—petite and blonde with eyes the same deep blue-green as the Indian Ocean.
Let’s get that ring off and start an IV.
His eyes wouldn’t stay open.
Mom, is he dead?
Maybe I am?
The angel knelt alongside him, stroking his hair. You’ll be all right. They’re taking you to the hospital.
Hospital? Marsh thought he’d died. That was the only way he’d ever see his son again.
A man approached with a tool and then there was pressure on his left hand. Ma’am, would you mind holding his ring? He’ll probably want to have it repaired when he comes out of this.
Why were they taking his wedding ring?
Before he could further process the question, his eyes drifted closed and refused to open again.
* * *
“WE’LL BE TAKING him to Arkansas Valley Regional in La Junta,” the older of the two paramedics said to Effie after they’d settled the man in the back of the ambulance. He handed her the stranger’s wallet. She felt foolish for not having looked for it sooner. “Since he’s gotta be from around here, would you please contact his family? This kind of news comes better from friends.”
“Sure,” she said automatically, hoping her grandmother might know the man’s next of kin. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’ll live, but it’s too soon to tell how much lasting damage there might be to his hand.”
While the twins chased the ambulance down the dirt drive, Mabel approached with Cassidy still on her hip. “Sure didn’t see any of this coming. Some bit of excitement, huh?”
“Yep.” Excitement was one way of putting it. Effie’s pulse still hadn’t slowed.
Her grandmother wrangled the boys back into the house to help fix lunch. “You coming?”
“I will in a sec.” Effie gravitated toward the barn. “Let me take care of the stranger’s horse.”
Effie led the chestnut into the cathedral-like barn, setting the wallet on top of a hay bale. The structure’s ancient wood creaked in the light breeze. She never tired of the smells of hay and worn leather tack and a trace of manure.
Mabel had inherited the ranch from her third husband, Dwayne, a few years earlier. They’d celebrated their thirtieth anniversary before he died from cancer. He’d been a kind, loving man—far better than Effie’s no-account grandfather, who’d gone to jail for cattle rustling a year after their vows.
Poor Mabel had then married his brother, but that marriage hadn’t turned out much better. He’d been a moonshiner who’d gone and gotten himself shot and died a week later from his
