Bangtail Instinct (eBook)

Bruce Leaf (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
220 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8808-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Tom Sparks spent his life running an isolated cattle ranch, but, like his health, it is failing. When the bank forecloses on it, he erupts in anger and takes off-on horseback-into the wilderness, determined to ride all the way to Mexico to help his ailing sister and finally do something right. His journey and escape from modern society find their way onto the Internet and capture the imagination of millions of people who wish they, too, could shuck everything and be free.

Bruce Leaf worked in various newspaper editing roles for many years before turning to writing fiction. 'Bangtail Instinct' is his fourth novel following 'Sea Change,' 'Pieces of Eight,' and 'Fire Step.' He lives in Colorado.

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Tom Sparks is dying of cancer and his ranch is failing. His wife, Jody, reveals she wants to do something meaningful in her remaining years. He gets a letter from Abby, his older sister in Mexico, saying she is sick. When he is served with foreclosure papers, he goes ballistic, torches his house, and takes off on his horse into the wilderness. Sheriff Cat Osborne investigates the fire but delays going after him. It's late in the day and she doesn't have a horse or backcountry gear with her. Tom rides through the desert and meets a crazy former Wall Street banker, Pickett, who applauds what he is doing. When Osborne tracks him to the mine where Pickett lives, he stalls her to give Tom time to escape. Later, he helps a dazed and abused woman, Marla, and then humiliates her abuser, an outlaw biker named Billy, who swears to get even. Marla persuades her brother, Sy, to drive Tom to Mexico. They run into a police roadblock set up to capture Tom, but he bolts on his horse and disappears again into the desert. Marla posts information about him on the Web. He stumbles into a hidden oasis where the women living there are not happy to see him until they learn he's a famous outlaw. Sheriff Osborne catches up to him there but realizes that arresting him likely will cost her votes, so she decides to accompany him on his journey. People throughout the country admire Tom's courage and determination. One lone cowboy fighting the system gives them hope for what the country can still be. With the public's support, a cowboy's determination, and an insane amount of luck, can Tom reach Abby in time and save his ranch?

Textauszug

Chapter 1

Tom Sparks sat slumped in the saddle on a wind-scoured hilltop, his eyes on a band of wild horses grazing in a basin below. A gray stallion looked up to observe him but must have decided he was not a threat because he turned away and dipped his mouth to nibble on more grass. Wind ruffled their manes and tails, and they stepped forward every few seconds as if pushed by an invisible hand. Something caught their attention because they all raised their heads and sniffed the air. The stallion’s nostrils quivered. He bobbed his head slightly and trotted a few steps before breaking into a canter. The others followed, running across the empty plain that stretched for miles before rising into a line of rounded hills.

Tom watched until they had dwindled to mere dots in the distance. He caught a whiff of sage and dust mixed with rain, the first sign of an approaching thunderstorm. A gust tugged at his coat and caused his mare to take a step forward. That’s what the mustangs must have smelled, he thought, and why they took off. Another gust, stronger this time, was followed by a rumble of thunder. He turned up his collar to shield his neck from the wind and coming rain. Rosa shifted under him again, a signal she’d had enough and wanted to go. A blue heeler lying nearby pricked his ears forward and stared at him, silently asking him if they were leaving.

Tom pressed Rosa with his knee, and she turned and began walking away from the bluff.

He whistled softly. “Up, Brillo.”

He patted his leg, and the dog, named for the rough fur around his neck, trotted over and leapt up. Tom grabbed him around the stomach and pulled him onto his lap. When he had settled, Tom let the reins droop and allowed Rosa to pick her own way home. She’d done it countless times before and knew the route. She headed down the back side of the rise just as the first drops spattered the dust. By the time they got down into the trees, the clouds had opened up and the rain poured down. Thick branches offered minimal protection, but that ended when the forest gave way to a long rectangular field. A wire fence split it in two, a natural meadow on one side and a grazed pasture on the other where cattle huddled together. At the far end, lights shone from a barn and a ranch house.

Tom tipped the brim of his hat lower over his forehead to keep the rain off his face. Partway through the meadow, he felt Brillo tense and noticed his eyes and ears were focused on something in the woods. Rosa turned her head and swiveled her ears toward it, too. Tom squinted but saw only the dark timber that rimmed the grass. He halted Rosa and listened but heard only the rain drumming the ground. Then he caught it—a low bawling of an animal in pain.

He patted Brillo’s side. “Down, boy.”

The dog jumped off and ran toward the sound.

Tom dismounted, got a flashlight from his saddlebag, and followed. At the base of a tree, Brillo nosed something, pulled back, and then stretched forward again as far as he dared so he could sniff. When Tom got close, he saw what Brillo had found. A calf was curled up tight, licking a bloody leg. Seeing Tom, it struggled to stand and attempted to hobble away on its three good legs.

“Ho, easy now, ho,” Tom said, spreading his arms to prevent it from getting by him.

It kicked and resisted when he caught it but eventually gave up. Tom winced at the sight of the wound and cursed the animal that caused it. He carried the calf back to Rosa and draped it across her withers until he got seated, then drew it close and bent forward to protect it from the rain. With one hand gripping the calf and the other holding the reins, he put Rosa into a trot and headed toward the buildings at the end of the field. Brillo padded along in front, leading the way.

At the fence, he turned and rode along it to a gate on a rutted two-lane track that led to the spread. With the calf under one arm, he dismounted, pulled a wire loop off a post, and swung open the gate. After Rosa plodded through, he closed it and paused to assess the rusty wire and leaning posts along the sagging fence line, thinking he needed to get after that again. Another chore on his never-ending to-do list. He remounted and followed Brillo up the lane.

The house and barn and outbuildings, worn down by time and weather, were built snug against the base of a horseshoe-shaped hill whose arms wrapped well beyond the structures. Tom’s great-grandfather had chosen the spot to homestead because it was sheltered from the worst of the weather. Sometimes in winter, wind-driven snow curled off the crest like a wave and settled around the house in a white mist. But the hill didn’t protect the spread from everything. When the gales roared through above and spilled down the hill, which they did every year, the old house creaked and shuddered and suffered. There had been more times than Tom cared to remember when he had been forced to drop everything and repair holes in the roof where the wind had torn it apart.

He pulled up at the barn. A two-door pickup was parked out front under an old cottonwood that sucked water from a nearby stock pond. He set the calf on the ground and then, with the saddlebags slung over his shoulder, carried it inside and laid it down on straw in a stall. He examined the bloody wound.

He sucked in his breath.

From a medical kit hanging from a nail in the wall, he got some salve and patted it where an animal had sunk in its teeth. The calf kicked and tried to hop away.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’ll be done in a minute.” He wrapped tape around the injured leg and then released the calf, which limped as fast as it could to the far side of the pen where it leaned against the wooden wall and eyed him. He smiled.

Next, he unsaddled Rosa, removed her bridle, brushed and fed her, and then put her in a stall for the night. His day was finally done.

In the house, he changed into dry clothes and then sat at a small kitchen table and poured a finger of whiskey into a shot glass. His wife looked over at him and let her glance linger before going back to washing dishes in the sink. She thought he looked more tired than ever. Seventy going on eighty. Shaggy gray hair, matted and swept back by his hat, topped brown eyes and a face lined from years of squinting into wind and snowstorms and sunlight. For just a moment, his face reminded her of photos she’d seen of wizened old sailors who had spent a lifetime at sea. Faces wrinkled and creased but with eyes clear and bright. His hands, though, were those of a rancher. There was no mistaking them, nicked and scarred as they were from decades of stringing barbed wire and fixing broken machinery.

Tom lit a cigarette and held it pinched between his forefinger and middle finger. He smoked slowly, tapping ash into a small tray made of folded aluminum foil, and watched Jody work. She wore a flannel shirt untucked, scuffed boots, and jeans muddied at the ankle from walking in the muck while it rained. Though ranch work had kept her lithe and lean, her age was beginning to show in the gray that filtered through her brown hair and by the glasses she wore nearly all the time now.

He smoked in silence until the cigarette was down to the filter. He stubbed it out in the tray, then reached across the table for a packet of unopened bills that were slotted in a dual napkin rack, and began sorting through them. He paused on one, pulled glasses from his shirt pocket, then slit open one end of the envelope with a butter knife, blew into the hole, and shook out a letter. After scanning it, he tossed it on the table.

Jody looked up. “Something wrong?”

He held it out for her. She dried her hands with a dish towel, came over, and read it.

“Ha! Not a chance.” She slapped the towel on the counter and dropped the letter back on the table.

“Bank’s gonna take the place,” he said.

She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Beyond me why they’d even want it.”

“Maybe for a time share.”

“Funny.” A look of anguish crossed her face, and she pushed off the counter and sat down across from him. “This damn place.”

He looked over the top of his glasses, waiting for her to explain.

She took the hint. “All this work, every day, both of us, and what do we have to show for it?”

Tom waved vaguely at the barn and the property.

“Yeah, well, that’s not much to be proud of.”

“We got the herd.”

She snorted. “That’s not much to be proud of, either.”

He bit his lip and looked away.

Jody noticed. “What?”

He debated not telling her, but then decided she should know. “Found a calf out there. Bit just above a hoof.”

Jody shook her head. “Yeah, not surprised. Seems like no matter how hard we try there’s always something knocking us down. Somebody sneezes somewhere and that somehow affects the price of our beef. Whatever it is, it’s always out of our control.” She paused, then touched his hand. “Sorry, it’s not your fault. It’s just … it’s just I feel so helpless. And...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8808-6 / 9798350988086