the broken fence. She started walking around, looking first into the distance, then glancing down to the ground. Then she did it again, even as Casey pretty much did the same thing.
And he saw some stuff that was interesting, like hoofprints in the grass, but unlikely to be any helpful evidence.
“Okay, Casey, look at this,” Melody called to him. She gestured for him to join her, even as she continued studying the ground.
“Look at this,” she repeated and pointed to an area right by her feet, where the grass had been tromped down and some dirt showed, similar to the ground he’d been examining, too. “See that? There are some hoofprints of cows, probably the missing ones since the prints are fairly new—sharp and prominent. They’re heading in that direction.” She pointed. “South. That’s the way we should look for them.”
Casey couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Guess what? Your cows left hoofprints over where I was standing, too, and I was studying them when you called me to come over.”
Melody looked slightly abashed, but then her expression again became defiant. “Then, good. We’re on the same page. We can compare and help each other and—”
“I understand you want to help and I appreciate it. But like I told you—”
“Look,” she interrupted, “I know a lot more about cattle and hoofprints than you do. And more about the ranch and pastures, too.” She was being a bit repetitious. He knew that, hadn’t forgotten it. But still…
“I get all that,” he told her. “And I’ve already told you why it’s not a good idea for you to come.”
“I’ll prove otherwise,” she insisted, contradicting him again. She began moving forward quickly, her head down.
But they weren’t going to learn more now. Not here. Tomorrow he’d hurry in the same direction and hopefully find something helpful.
Maybe even those missing cattle…
“Hey. Look at that.” Melody had stopped and was looking down to what was undoubtedly more cattle hoofprints. Only, she bent and reached for something, then stopped. She looked up at him again. “I doubt that any cow dropped that,” she said.
“What?” he asked. He kneeled down beside her…and stared.
She was pointing to an area within a hoofprint, in dirt between fronds of tamped-down grass, and something small and shiny gleamed from it.
“What is that?” He resisted the urge to grab and examine it—and was glad she hadn’t done that, either.
“It looks like some kind of silver charm,” Melody responded in a somewhat hushed voice. “It could have been there before any cattle walked or stampeded around here through the fence during this rustling, but I’ve never seen anything like it in any of the pastures.”
“I think,” he mused, “and I may just be reaching for something helpful to identify some suspects and get this thing resolved, but you just might have found our first piece of evidence.”
Melody was impressed, though not surprised, when Casey took a couple of pictures with his cell phone, then pulled vinyl gloves from his pocket, picked up the charm and stuck it into a small plastic bag he also carried.
Clearly, he was prepared to do his job, wherever it led him and whatever evidence he happened to find.
The charm was the kind worn on necklaces or bracelets, and appeared to be silver. It was in the shape of the letter G.
“Does this look familiar to you?” He held the bag containing the charm toward Melody.
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
But that inspired her to continue studying the ground in that area, and Casey did, too. Neither of them found anything else other than more hoofprints.
“Do you think the charm was dropped by one of the rustlers?” Melody asked the deputy as they finally gave up.
“Anything’s possible,” he said with a shrug of his wide shoulders as he shot a wry look in her direction. A frustrated look. She wished she could do something—identify the charm, find something more helpful, to ease that frustration.
But she was frustrated, too. And no solution came to her.
“Let’s head back now,” he said, shoving the bag into his pocket. “Maybe we’ll figure things out better tomorrow.”
“Absolutely,” she said, hoping it was true.
The walk back to the ranch house was a lot faster than the one to the damaged fence. But going in this direction, they didn’t need to check for any indication of where the cattle were or who’d rustled them through that fence.
Or whether there were any more charms on the ground.
Not until tomorrow.
And, yes, she would be going along with Casey. It was important to her to do the best job possible here. This ranch had become her refuge after leaving her past behind, and she adored its cattle. She intended to help to save the stolen ones. Period.
She had to give Casey credit for not grumbling or protesting when she said, as they started back, “So I assume that, as the first person to find evidence in your crime investigation, I can come along tomorrow and continue to help you.”
“I assume so,” he said resignedly. He shot her a crooked sideways smile. “And, yeah, we can do the kind of stakeout you described.”
She couldn’t help smiling back and was careful not to make it appear she was gloating. Or at least not too much.
Besides, Casey was one good-looking guy, so it wasn’t hard to smile at him.
Not that she had any intention of allowing her goal of helping to find the missing cattle by working with this guy turn into any kind of personal interest in him.
She’d learned her lesson not too long ago. It was why she had left her Texas home and found a job here, in Arizona, as a ranch hand, after her ugly, depressing divorce.
She knew now that it hadn’t been the smartest thing to marry her high-school sweetheart, Travis Ellison, and follow him to Dallas. They’d only been married a couple of years before Travis, who’d become a big-city banker, had left her for a colleague, a much younger woman named Loretta Lane.
What had made it even more heartbreaking was that Travis had told Melody she was a “country girl,” and he needed a “real woman.”
Whatever that meant, it had hurt. A lot. She had sometimes suspected the worst about Travis before then, that he was cheating on her, but since she’d thought she loved him, she’d stayed with him, hoping they could work things out. At least she’d tried, but it had also hurt that he didn’t seem to care.
That insult had finally led to the inevitable end of their relationship.
And,
