Stag Party: A Patrick Flint Novel Read online

  Stag Party

  A Patrick Flint Novel

  Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  SkipJack Publishing

  Contents

  Free PFH Ebooks

  Chapter One: Buck

  Chapter Two: Witness

  Chapter Three: Wither

  Chapter Four: Ride

  Chapter Five: Dive

  Chapter Six: Strain

  Chapter Seven: Squirm

  Chapter Eight: Rip

  Chapter Nine: Smooth

  Chapter Ten: Pump

  Chapter Eleven: Belong

  Chapter Twelve: Ready

  Chapter Thirteen: Treat

  Chapter Fourteen: Party

  Chapter Fifteen: Wake

  Chapter Sixteen: Arrest

  Chapter Seventeen: Tense

  Chapter Eighteen: Break

  Chapter Nineteen: Panic

  Chapter Twenty: Prep

  Chapter Twenty-one: Speed

  Chapter Twenty-two: Yearn

  Chapter Twenty-three: Rescue

  Chapter Twenty-four: Despair

  Chapter Twenty-five: Plug

  Chapter Twenty-six: Flee

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Reject

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Find

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Panic

  Chapter Thirty: Examine

  Chapter Thirty-one: Switch

  Chapter Thirty-two: Hunker

  Chapter Thirty-three: Interrogate

  Chapter Thirty-four: Reconcile

  Chapter Thirty-five: Leap

  Chapter Thirty-six: Resent

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Sleuth

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Follow

  Chapter Thirty-nine: Fire

  Chapter Forty: Summon

  Chapter Forty-one: Dispatch

  Chapter Forty-two: Combat

  Chapter Forty-three: Converge

  Chapter Forty-four: Surprise

  Chapter Forty-five: Deal

  Chapter Forty-six: Resolve

  Acknowledgments

  Books by the Author

  About the Author

  Books from SkipJack Publishing

  Foreword

  Free PFH Ebooks

  Before you begin reading, you can snag a free Pamela Fagan Hutchins What Doesn't Kill You ebook starter library by joining her mailing list at https://www.subscribepage.com/PFHSuperstars.

  Chapter One: Buck

  South of Buffalo, Wyoming

  Wednesday, December 28, 1977, 2:00 p.m.

  Patrick

  Ice crystals tumbled through the air from the low-hanging clouds above the pickup, dancing to a landing on the windshield. For a moment, Patrick Flint stared at an oversized flake, mesmerized. It looked like a fancy Christmas tree ornament, only prettier, with an intricate pattern of branching arms radiating from a multi-faceted center. So white it was almost blue, so fresh and clean that it was hard to believe it had probably started its life as a particle of dust. But its beauty was fleeting. The heat of the defroster on the inside of the glass melted it, and it turned into a colorless blob that merged with other blobs and became water. Amazing. And to think millions more are landing all around us. The ground had been snow-free and the weather unseasonably warm until only a few hours ago. Which meant the snowflakes would be melting on the asphalt, too, then refreezing into something dangerous. He gave his head a shake and cut his eyes back to the road.

  “Look at the branches on those plates. Dendrites, I’d say.” He drummed his hands on the steering wheel in time to “Frosty the Snowman” playing in his head, but didn’t sing it, sparing himself ridicule from his kids. “You get them when the humidity is high and the temperature is just perfect, like today. Five degrees. A little warmer, a little colder, and they’d be smaller. Less humidity, and we wouldn’t see all the arms.”

  “It’s like a snow globe.” His son Perry leaned forward and peered upward. The boy’s football season crew cut was growing back in, a few shades darker than the snow.

  “And every one of them unique.”

  “Do they have different names?” Perry asked.

  A heavy sigh vibrated from the lips of his daughter Trish. All he could see of her was her long, blonde braid. She was turned toward the window, but he doubted she was watching the snow. To call her moody and morose right now was downplaying the situation. Her boyfriend Ben was leaving for college at the University of Wyoming in Laramie the next day. It was an early departure for the spring semester, but he was starting a work-study program and had to report to his job.

  Patrick played to his appreciative audience. “Well, there are names for the different types. Dendrites, plates, columns, needles, prisms. But even those have a bunch of names. Hollow columns, solid plates, stellar plates.” He grinned at his son. “Too many variations for me to remember them all.”

  And Patrick had tried to remember them for the last few winters. He’d visited the Johnson County Library and studied up on the formation of snow during their first year in Wyoming. Living in Texas, he’d thought all snow was just snow. But now he’d quickly seen the diversity of it firsthand. Shoveling and plowing had driven the point home. Not all snowflakes—or snowdrifts—are created the same. From tiny pellets to large flakes. Heavy and dense to light and fluffy. Pill-like and differentiated to lacy and seemingly interlocking. He loved them all, until about March fifteenth or so, when he and the rest of the state were ready for sunshine and green grass.

  The big dendrite flakes falling today were his favorite.

  And they were coming down thick and fast, obscuring the view of the palisades of Crazy Woman Canyon and the greater Bighorn Mountains to their west. Already, a thin, white blanket had settled over Trabing Road. Off the asphalt—its dark color drawing heat from the sun that was augmented by the friction of warm tires—the ground was cooler, and snow was accumulating around the leafless buck brush, rocks, and fence posts. No dilly dallying at the ranch. These roads are gonna get slicker than goose poop.

  “All I care about is how good they’ll be to snowmobile on.” Perry’s wide smile showed off a slightly undersized temporary fake tooth held in place by a retainer.

  Patrick grinned back. Perry was over the moon about their weekend trip. Dr. John, Patrick’s boss at the hospital, had invited them to join a group of his friends from around the world—fellow Yale alumni, real movers and shakers—up at a mountain lodge, for guy time and winter sports. Not just snowmobiling, either. Dr. John had promised snow shoeing, dog sledding, and cross-country skiing. They might even go ice fishing on Meadowlark Lake if the conditions were right.

  Perry’s voice cracked as he joined in with a song on the radio. “You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel.”

  “It’s Lucille, not loose wheel.” His sister shot him the type of cutting look teenage girls do better than anyone, her blue eyes like diamonds.

  Perry deflected it in the way thirteen-year-old boys do better than anyone. “I know you are, but what am I?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. And you stink like rotten meat. Learn to take a shower like the rest of us, shrimp.”

  He chanted, “So, so suck your toe, all the way to Mexico.”

  “Dad, tell him to stop.”

  Patrick tightened his lips to keep from laughing. “That’s enough, Perry.” The freckle-faced boy delighted in getting under his sister’s skin. Patrick was just happy to see Perry showing some spirit. Since the death of his best friend and football buddy John the previous September, he’d been in and out of a deep, blue funk. Lately, he was showing signs he might have escaped it.

  A new-model, mint-green sedan appeared, driving in the opposite direction from the Flints, toward town. Not the us
ual type of vehicle Patrick saw out on these roads, and not one he recognized as belonging to a local. Most of those were gas guzzlers like his own truck. As it drew closer, Patrick identified it as an Impala with unimpressive tires. The driver was a dark-haired fellow, and the passenger, too, Patrick thought, from the brief glimpse he got of him. He didn’t envy them their drive. The roads already didn’t favor low clearance and city treads, although the vast distances between filling stations were an advantage of the Impala. Patrick still remembered a few years back, in Texas, when he had to hold off filling his tank more than a time or two because of gasoline shortages. It was hard to believe things happening all the way on the other side of the world could impact him at a gas pump in Wyoming, but they could, if it happened again. How much worse might it be here? Maybe he should get a smaller vehicle . . . except then he’d be in the same boat as these poor saps the whole long winter. He hoped he didn’t find the Impala and its occupants stranded later.

  A gate and a new wooden O — M sign over it appeared on their left. The recently renamed O Bar M Ranch—previously known simply as the Ochoa homestead—was now jointly owned by the Ochoa and Mendoza families, descendants of Basque that had moved to the area in the early 1900s to herd sheep. Patrick clicked on a last second blinker and made a careful turn, pumping the brakes gently without sliding. The snow was deeper on the dirt entrance road. The depth wasn’t a problem yet, though.

  The storm had made early afternoon seem like dusk, but visibility was better as they headed east, and he even got a decent glimpse of the property before them. Rugged hills and gullies without a tree in sight, except around the house and ranch buildings fifty feet ahead, where a herd of deer had clustered, foraging behind a wind break. Mostly does and their spring fawns, but also a few bucks of various sizes, including one with a trophy-size set of antlers. Something was running in the field behind them. At first, he thought it was a man, then he decided it had to be a deer. No one would be out there on foot in this weather.

  “I can’t believe you drug us out here, three days after Christmas. It’s not even civilized.” Trish pulled her puffy blue coat tighter around herself but didn’t zip it.

  “Your mom needs a horse.”

  Cindy—his wife Susanne’s horse—had died over a year ago. Been murdered, actually, if that’s what you called it when someone intentionally killed a horse for no good reason. She hadn’t joined them on any rides since then, even when friends offered her their horses. Patrick’s friend, Mayor Martin Ochoa, was looking to sell his father’s horse now that the older Ochoa had retired to town with his wife, to be nearer to medical care and their son. Hence Patrick’s trip out to the O Bar M.

  “She hates horses.”

  “She doesn’t hate them. They make her nervous. But if we find her the right horse, she’ll get over that. She’s missing out on some great adventures.”

  “And some not so great. Or have you already forgotten about our ride up to Highland Park?”

  The ride where mobsters from Chicago had killed Perry’s friend John. No, he hadn’t forgotten that one, and he hated that Trish had brought it up in front of her brother, but Perry didn’t flinch. “Different adventures than that one.”

  “Like the one to Walker Prairie?” Perry said.

  The ride where Trish had been kidnapped by the sons of a patient Patrick had been unable to save. Of all the risks of practicing medicine, it was one he’d never anticipated. “Or that one. We’ve had plenty of other fun trail rides.” He pulled the pickup to a stop next to a blue and white Ramcharger, one he often saw parked in front of City Hall in Buffalo.

  “I’ll wait here,” Trish said.

  “I need your opinion.”

  “My opinion is that this is a bad idea.”

  “About the horse.”

  “My opinion about the horse is that it’s a bad idea.”

  Patrick realized debating her was the bad idea. “Noted. And you’re coming. You, too, buddy.” He smiled at Perry.

  A shaft of brilliant sunlight broke through the clouds over a little white ranch house. In its front yard, a nearly vertical shaft of snow rose from the ground and began to rotate.

  “Snownado!” Perry shouted, pointing at it as he climbed out of the driver’s side after Patrick.

  Or snow devil. Snow devils were rare, but less so in windy Wyoming than elsewhere in the world. Patrick had seen a generous handful of them in just a few years. Combine surface wind shear and cold air over a warmer, snowy surface—especially in sunny spots, and most especially before or under a snow squall—and, just as sure as Bob’s your uncle, a column of snow particles would whirl skyward. Perry ran toward the ranch house, chasing the snownado, which danced away from him and disappeared. He returned, laughing and pink cheeked.

  The three Flints walked toward a weathered red barn, zipping jackets and shoving hands in gloves and hats on heads. The kids, wool caps. Patrick, a cowboy hat, which his ears were already complaining about. The cold wind had a bite to it.

  A grizzle-haired woman with a bowed back and bare head waved to them from where she was standing at a hitching post by the barn. She was clad in a long oilskin jacket with the collar up around a black scarf. The get-up made her seem miniscule. She had her hand on a normal-sized dapple gray horse, saddled and ready. The woman stomped the ground with black rubber boots, swishing her wool skirt around her calves. The horse lowered its head, eyes closed, and blew steam from its nostrils.

  Patrick lifted a hand. “I’m Patrick Flint. We’re supposed to be meeting Martin out here.”

  She shook her head no.

  “I thought that was his Ramcharger back there?”

  “It is. It break down. He call earlier today. He not coming.”

  “What happened?”

  “He no say. I show you horse?” She smiled, wrinkling her face into the lines of a topographical map, with her nose a mountain peak.

  “That would be great. What should we call you?”

  Her lips parted. Her upper gum was bare of teeth. Unable to afford dental care when she was young? By the looks of her clothing, she still couldn’t. “Rosa Mendoza.”

  Patrick hid his surprise. Rosa Mendoza was the new matriarch of the ranch, married to Stefano Mendoza. From what Martin had told Patrick, the Mendozas had bought a half interest in the Ochoa homestead, for cash, which had funded his parents’ retirement. Patrick had treated Stefano for bronchitis the previous winter, too, and knew him to be fifty-five years old. Rosa was not the destitute old woman Patrick had thought her to be at first sight. And, despite her diction, she wasn’t a newcomer to the state of Wyoming, either. It just went to show you couldn’t judge a book by its cover. Not completely, anyhow.

  “Nice to meet you.” He put a hand on his son’s head. Perry ducked out from under it. “This is Perry.” He waved his hand at his daughter. “And this is Trish.”

  “You the doctor?”

  “I am one of the doctors from Buffalo.”

  “You look at my sheeps, yes?”

  “Uh . . .” Patrick had filled in for the vet, Joe Crumpton, on multiple occasions, but, so far, he hadn’t been pressed into treating any sheep. Sheep dogs, yes. Actual sheep, no.

  “Ewes got babies on the way. Some not so good.”

  “I’m not . . .”

  “Come.” She motioned him to follow with her hand.

  Trish raised her eyebrows at him. Perry snorted. Patrick shook his head and followed Rosa into the barn. Sheep. There’s a first time for everything. Patrick brushed snow off his face while his eyes adjusted. He looked back at the light streaming in the entrance. Dust motes spun in the air. The interior of the wooden structure was warmer, darker, and stinkier than outside had been. With a light sniff he identified dirty wool and droppings. Sheep weren’t known as the sweetest smelling of animals.

  “This way,” Rosa said. She was standing beside a wooden-slatted stall with two wooly sheep in it, both of their heads down. Above her, stacks of hay in a loft reached to the pea
ked two-story ceiling. “Them sheeps.”

  “What seems to be the matter with them?”

  She lifted her arms and dropped them. “I think they got the lambing sickness. Yes?”

  Patrick had talked to enough ranchers to know she was referring to pregnancy toxemia, which was incident to low blood sugar and occurred most frequently in late term pregnancy with ewes carrying multiple lambs. And that it was often fatal. “Is that what you think?”

  She nodded. “I call the hands when I find them in here, but they no answer. It their job to take care of them. Lambs due soon. These ewes dull. Not eating.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” A late term pregnant ewe dull and off her food sounded serious. He leaned into the pen and palpated their sides. Under their thick wool, he found taut pregnant bellies without the layer of fat ewes relied on to make it through their pregnancies. The animals needed nutrition. “I’d call Dr. Crumpton out, if I were you. But in the meantime, do you have corn syrup? We could feed them that with a syringe.” They needed electrolytes, too. “And Gatorade?”

  She nodded. “I get syrup from the house. I know how to make the alligator drink. I bring it. And I call the lazy hands again. You ride the horse while I gone.”