mother hadn’t told him.
The earth was hard with the freeze as he set to digging up the piping around the frost-free spigot his family used for watering the animals throughout the year. The tractor’s bucket broke through the top of the dirt, and as he dug deeper, the frozen soil turned into a muddy mess of gravel and clay as the water from the well spilled from the leaking pipes and saturated the ground. Water poured from the sides of the bucket as he moved the earth, piling it to one side.
It felt good to be working again, to be contributing to his family and the ranch. If he could work here for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man—he didn’t want a job like Laura’s, some nine to five.
He scraped out another bucketful of dirt from the hole. As he emptied it onto the pile, something white protruded from the sticky, brown earth. The object looked like a long stick, but its end was round and knobby.
An uneasiness rose up from his belly as he shut off the tractor, the bucket lowered midway. He stepped down from the machine and made his way across the sticky mud.
As he grew near, the thing lurched slightly, settling with the dirt around it. Based on the grooves and speckles on the surface, it was definitely a bone. He swallowed back the nerves that had tightened his throat as he reminded himself that, even though it was a bone, it was probably nothing—just some animal remains or detritus of days gone by.
He picked up the bone, scraping away the mud as he turned it in his hands. It was stained brown from the tannins in the dirt, the long shaft darker than the round ball of the joint. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but it looked terrifyingly similar to a human femur. He laid the bone down near the base of the hill.
Turning back to the pile of dirt, he looked through it, hoping not to see another piece of bone. He scratched at the cold earth, the dirt and gravel tearing at his fingertips as he frantically searched for anything that could help him make sense of what he had found. His wet fingers grew icy as he worked away, then stopped abruptly when he touched something hard and even colder. His hand closed around something L-shaped and, as he pulled it from the mud, he gave a small, muffled cry. In his grip was a gun.
There was the clang of metal on metal as pipes hit the ground and bounced behind him. He turned to see his father and Laura looking at him. Merle gasped in shock.
Rainier dropped the muddy weapon, letting it fall to his feet as he looked at Laura’s pale face.
“What are you doing with a gun, Rainier?” she asked, disgust and horror filling her voice as she stared at it, and at the bone lying beside it. “You—you haven’t been out of prison for five hours and yet here you are, back to your old ways.”
“I swear...it’s not what you think,” he argued, raising his dirty hands, palms up. “It... I didn’t know it was a gun when I picked it up.”
She shook her head. “You can take it up with the judge. In the meantime, you can kiss your parole goodbye.”
He couldn’t go back to prison. For a moment, Rainier considered running, just grabbing one of the old ranch trucks and hitting the highway. Thanks to the many letters his mother had sent him when he’d been away, he’d learned all about the murder at the hands of his former sister-in-law Alli and her escape from persecution. It seemed that law enforcement in Montana was usually two steps behind. Then again, thanks to his own experiences, he wasn’t sure he could rely on that to be completely true, or he would have never found his ass in prison.
“Laura—”
“Ms. Blade,” Laura interrupted, as she typed something into her phone.
“My apologies, Ms. Blade,” he said, careful to use the same sharp tone. “It’s just that I don’t... I can’t go back to prison. That wasn’t my gun. Hell, I didn’t even know it was a gun until it was in my hand. You have to believe me, I never want to waste my time behind bars again.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and from the set of her jaw and the look in her eyes, he could tell she was struggling to believe him. He had no idea what else to tell her. No doubt, as a parole officer, she would have learned by now that very few people in this world told the truth—and even fewer who were ex-cons.
He’d long ago given up the idealistic notion that anyone would take anything he had to say at face value ever again. The moment the judge’s gavel hit the block and he’d been delivered the sentence, Rainier had known he’d forever wear a scarlet letter for his crimes. Part of that sentence would be always being thought of as less than and dishonorable—no matter how justified he felt in committing the crime.
“Can’t we just look past this, Ms. Blade?” asked his father. Merle held his hands together almost as if he was silently praying that Laura would honor his request.
Rainier could’ve told him a long time ago that that kind of thing had a way of blowing back on a guy.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, I know your family’s been through a lot in the last month, but that doesn’t mean I can just ignore what’s going on here.” Laura frowned. “I made it very clear to your son that there were certain conditions associated with his parole—conditions he absolutely could not violate. And yet here we are. I can only imagine the kind of trouble he would find himself in if I wasn’t here.”
“I can assure you that my son has always been a good man.”
“Let me guess—he’s just misunderstood?” Her lips puckered as she spat the words out like watermelon seeds.
“I’m not going to make any excuses for my son’s behavior, but you have to know that he wouldn’t intentionally find himself in trouble. Especially not like this.”
Her gaze swung to Rainier and he nodded, hoping that she would listen to both of them.
“Ms. Blade, it’s not like I’m asking for a second chance. I’m just asking for any chance at all.” Rainier hated the note of pleading in his voice. He’d never been one to beg, but he’d never been given his freedom and then had it rescinded on the same day.
“The police are on their way.” Laura pushed her phone into her back pocket. “I won’t tell them about the gun in your hand and the remains at your feet, but you have to promise me that this was just a case of you being at the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing else.”
A sense of relief washed over him, but faded away again as the piercing sound of sirens echoed in the distance. He looked in that direction, but in the bright afternoon light couldn’t make out their source. Hopefully, his brother wasn’t on duty. The last person he needed to see right now was Wyatt.
“Do you promise, Rainier?” Laura pressed.
“Of course,” he said, trying to sound earnest.
“And you won’t find yourself in any more trouble?” she continued.
“You’re welcome to stick around and be my wingman as long as you like, Ms. Blade,” Rainier said, giving her a cheeky smile he hoped would ease some of the tension between them.
The parole officer looked away, making him wonder if his smile had worked, after all.
“Son,
