He eased down on the makeshift bed. “Honey, I don’t know what the hell they had in mind, but the one that chuckled was a Gallagher. I don’t know his name, but I recognized his voice from one of the guys in the fight at the church. That means they were stealing us from the Brennans.”

“But why?” She stretched out beside him.

He wrapped an arm around her. “Anyone who gets into a pig war is bat-shit crazy. Let’s find our way home and pretend it never happened, until we can prove it. And then we’ll take them out, one at a time.”

“No use in wasting time. I’ll set fire to both their ranches and burn them to the ground.” The last words were mumbled, and then she was sound asleep.

He tucked the blanket tightly around them both and swore that when he found out who’d done this, the pig war would be nothing compared to what he would do.

Chapter 14

Jill didn’t want to open her eyes. She knew exactly where she was and how she got there and who was snuggled up against her back, but an itchy feeling on the nape of her neck said something was staring at her. If it was a granddaddy long-legs spider, she did not want to see it.

“Hey, are y’all alive?” someone said in a whisper.

Spiders did not talk, so Jill opened her eyes slowly.

“Wow! You are alive. I was afraid you was dead, and I ain’t touchin’ no dead person,” the kid said.

A big yellow dog stuck his nose through the wooden slats of the stall and sniffed the air.

“That’s Buster, my dog. He’s the one who found you first. I come huntin’ for him. Can you hear me?”

Jill nodded. “Where are we?”

“In my daddy’s barn. We only raise hogs now, so we don’t use this barn too much ’cept to store hog feed in and use when a sow has pigs in the real cold wintertime.”

“Are we in Burnt Boot?” she asked.

“Are you talkin’ in your sleep?” Sawyer asked.

“No, I’m talkin’ to a boy and his dog,” Jill answered.

Sawyer sat up so quick that the blanket went flying. The end smacked the dog on the nose, and he yelped. “Do you have a cell phone, son?”

“No, I don’t, but my mama does. She took it with her over to Miz Ruby’s last night though. Miz Ruby is getting another baby, and she needed my mama. Y’all know you ain’t supposed to be here, don’t you?”

Sawyer rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Where are we?”

“In my daddy’s barn. I done told the lady that.”

“But where is your daddy’s barn?” Sawyer asked.

“In Salt Holler. We’re the last house in the holler,” he said.

“How do we get out of here?”

“Well, you could go to the bridge if you need to drive across. But if you follow me, I’ll show you where you can climb over the fence and then go up to the road and follow it. If you go the wrong way, you’ll come to the bridge.”

“Do you go to church in Burnt Boot?” Sawyer asked.

“No, sir. I go to church right here in Salt Holler. Mr. Wallace Redding is preaching this mornin’. I like to listen to him.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“Burnt Boot.”

“Do you know Martin Brewster?”

“You mean Martin O’Donnell. He’s done changed his name, you know?”

“Yes, that’s the boy I’m talkin’ about.” Sawyer smiled. “Would you tell him tomorrow morning about finding us here, and tell him that my name is Sawyer O’Donnell?”

The kid nodded. “I’ll do it for you if you don’t tell my daddy that I let you go. He don’t take too kindly to people trespassin’. There’s signs up on all the fences.”

“I promise I won’t tell your daddy,” Sawyer said. “If you’ll show me which way it is that I need to go to get out of this holler, you can go on home.”

“Right back of this barn, you go straight through the corral and past the old outhouse, and you’ll see a fence with a red sign that says ‘Trespassers will be shot.’ Crawl over that fence and go through the ’squite all the way to the road. You can see the top of our barn when you get up on the road. It’s pretty steep to get up to the road, but me and my brother have done it, so I reckon y’all ain’t too old.”

“Which way do we go then?” Jill asked.

“The bus that takes us to school goes…” He looked at his hand and made an L with his left thumb and forefinger. “You go right.” He smiled.

“How old are you?” Jill asked.

“I’m eight, but that right and left business gets me all bumfuzzled.”

“Okay, but you won’t forget to tell Martin in school tomorrow, will you?” Sawyer asked.

He shook his head. “You’d best put them blankets back where Daddy had them. He don’t like things left out of place.”

“We will, and thank you,” Jill said.

“Bye, and y’all ought to get on out of here pretty quick. Daddy is feedin’ the hogs, but you never know if he’ll need something out of the tack room or not,” the boy said, and then he and the dog were gone.

“What I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee,” Jill groaned.

Sawyer quickly folded the blanket they had huddled under. “Well, darlin’, I’m sure once we hop that barbed-wire fence, beat our way through another mesquite thicket, and climb up out of this holler, there will be a Starbucks sitting right there.”

Jill followed his lead, stretching to get the kinks out of her back. “And a hotel right beside it with a soft bed and a big shower.” She shook hay from the bottom blanket and handed it to Sawyer. “I’m grateful right now that we had a place with a roof to sleep. We might have been huddled up against a scrub oak tree somewhere.”

“Hungry?”

“Yes, but I’ll live. You think someone will come along and give us a ride once we’re on the road?”

“Could we trust anyone other than Gladys or Polly or Verdie enough to get into the car or truck with them?” he asked.

“Well, shit!” she mumbled as they followed the path through the mesquite thicket.

Bits of hay had woven their way into Sawyer’s hair, and his jeans looked like he’d crumpled them up and let a dog or two sleep on them. Jill figured if she looked in a mirror, she’d be in the same bedraggled condition.

“Why would they do it?” she asked.

“If I was a guessin’ man, I’d guess that the Brennans got us first and they planned on throwing me out somewhere along the way and then sending Quaid out to rescue you. The way they had it planned is that you’d be so grateful to him for helping you to escape that you would have to repay him.”

“But you?”

“I’m collateral damage. They had figured on you taking your own truck, but when we got into my vehicle together, they had to take me with you.”

“They would have probably hog-tied you and given you to Kinsey to play with all weekend, instead of throwing you out beside the road.” She grinned. “And at the end of the weekend, she’d have you pantin’ around her long legs like a male dog after an old bitch in the springtime.”

“Maybe that’s what she thought, but she would have been in for a big surprise.”

They came out of the thicket and there was a wall of mud in front of them. Two little boys might climb that thing like monkeys when there was grass on it, but two grown adults were another story.

“Now what?” she asked.

He crossed his arms over his chest and studied the situation. “If I had a chain saw, I could cut down a tree, and we’d climb up it to the edge. Who’d have thought there would be an embankment like this in these parts? I can see the guard rails up there.”

“Me too. I vote that we keep the road in sight and follow it until we come to a better place to climb up,” she said.

He nodded and held up his left hand, making an L with his thumb and forefinger. “That way.” He grinned as he pointed.

“Yep, at least the sun is coming up and it’s not raining or sleeting,” she said.

* * *

Sawyer took her hand in his and trudged on ahead. She looked downright cute with hay stuck in her red hair. And by damn, she was a good sport to boot. She’d found things to be grateful for rather than bitching about her feet aching or no food.