Merciless

Sweaty, cranky, and carrying an armload of mail, I didn’t hide my annoyance when Jake pulled up next to me as I walked down the driveway.

He rolled down the window. “You busy?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Nice try. Come on, you need to clear your head. You ain’t been out and about on the ranch since you got back from Virginia.”

I squinted at him. “Did Hope send you over here?”

“Yep. When we heard about Penny… Hope knew you had to deal with it, since that’s your job, and she wanted me to make sure you were okay.”

My sister’s concern touched me. So I hopped into the passenger’s side of the truck… and hopped back out when we reached the first gate. We bumped along the existing truck tracks. I opened three more gates. Just as I began to get annoyed, Jake stopped at the top of the rise and parked instead of cutting to the left and following the ridge down to the closest pasture.

I climbed out and avoided stepping on a clump of cactus. The soil was sandy and dry enough to support that type of vegetation. I didn’t understand how those flat and barrel-shaped succulents survived the winter months, when the wind on this plateau blew a million miles an hour and a heavy crust of snow covered everything.

The cactus would be here long after I was gone.

I skirted a pile of scat-it appeared rabbits enjoyed the view here, too-and stood on the remaining chunk of a butterscotch-colored rock. Most of it had cracked and tumbled away down the steep incline, leaving a chalky white trail of sun-bleached shale.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I faced the wind. Not bitterly cold like this morning, but with enough bite to remind me night would be approaching soon. I gazed across the expanse of the valley. Skeletal trees followed the path of a dry creek bed.

The right side of the ridged plateau curved sharply, appearing flat until it fell away into nothingness. Stand too close to the edge in springtime and I would feel the earth’s pull, the ground shifting beneath my feet. Wanting me to tumble down the hillside like the hunks of red dirt and jagged rocks scattered and broken before me.

I’d walked this ridge more times than I could count. Always marveling at the topographical variances, from summertime lush grazing areas down by the creek to the wooded section that rimmed the bowl on the left. Everything I could see from this vantage point was Gunderson land. My father had said it often enough, with pride, that I’d loved coming here as a kid to look and lord over my domain. Knowing it’d be mine someday. And wanting that ownership in the worst way.

Now the vastness humbled me. As did the responsibility of being steward to this land for as long as it owned me.

Jake walked up and stood beside me. I wondered if he saw this the same way I did. Or was his view more calculating? Hoping, come springtime, the creek would run high, the grass would grow tall, and Mother Nature wouldn’t be the bitch, trying to test a human’s resilience.

He handed me a can of beer.

I looked at him and managed a smile. “Thanks.”

He cracked open a Coors, and we drank in silence. Not rushed. Not uncomfortable. Not pregnant with words that needed to be said but that neither of us wanted to speak.

Despite our past issues, Jake and I understood each other.

At least today.

That thought made me smile.

We each finished our cans of beer, but neither of us made a move to leave.

After a bit, Jake said, “Not everyone in my family believes John-John’s visions are gospel, Mercy.”

His comment surprised me. “Why do I think the Red Leaf family was… I don’t know if supportive is the right word, but maybe… accepting of his talents?”

“It ain’t like we got much choice, to be real honest.” He sighed. “Unci is hurtin’ about Penny. That don’t give John-John and Devlin the right to take their pain out on you. Sophie ain’t happy about that.”

“You talked to her?”

“Of course. She’s… this whole thing rips me up inside, mostly for her. For all her faults, loving too much ain’t one of them. With all that’s gone on in the past few weeks, and since you were gone for months… I know you’re questioning your place with her, Mercy. Don’t. She does consider you her family. Both you and Hope.”

A shard of pain lanced my heart that the woman who’d been a surrogate mother to me was emotionally eviscerated and I wasn’t allowed to comfort her.

Before I let that thought weigh me down more, Jake handed me another beer. I gave him an odd look. “Two beers in one day, Jake? Really? You got some bad news to tell me?”

“Funny. Not bad news. But something you oughta know. Something you shoulda been told a long time ago.”

Jake wasn’t a guy prone to drama, so the fact he’d brought me out here in the middle of the ranch to talk to me set off all my warning bells.

“This is something you can’t tell anyone, Mercy. I ain’t kiddin’. Not Dawson. Hope don’t even know. And you cannot let on that you know of this, to any of the people who are involved. I gotta have your word.”

“You’ve got it.”