“Jim!” Chad yelled. “Dammit, Jim, Wake up!

Everybody in the room stirred in their bunks as Chad flipped on the light switch.

“Jesus, Chad,” Jim was groggy. “What?”

“You left the gate open again last night, and now we got horses scattered all over the country, that’s what!”

Jim sat up in his bunk, rubbed his eyes and squinted against the light.

“That ain’t right, Chad,” Jim protested. “I closed that gate, I know I did. I even checked it before I came in the bunkhouse.”

“Sure you did. Just like you did the last time, and the time before that! I told you what would happen the next time horses got loose. You get your gear packed and be out of here by noon. You hear me?”

“Chad, that ain’t right. I closed that…”

“Jake,” Chad blurted, turning away from Jim. “You, Dan and Henry. You get mounted and get them horses gathered. We still got rides to take out today.” He turned back to Jim. “Your check will be ready by the time you leave.” Chad turned and stomped out the door, slamming it behind him as he went.

“I closed that gate,” Jim said looking around at the faces looking at him. “I know I did.”

Henry pushed the heel of his hand firmly into the socket of his left eye, trying to stave off the painful pounding just behind it. He was trying hard to recall clearly what he’d seen and heard during the night, but was having trouble. He knew he’d heard horses running, and he thought he saw and heard Chad leave the bunkhouse and come back, but he just couldn’t be certain. He knew it wasn’t like Jim to leave a gate open. He was too good a hand to do something like that. But Henry wasn’t also certain he hadn’t and because of that, Henry had no alternative but to get dressed, get mounted up and go gather the loose horses.

The three men headed out from the ranch while it was still dark, and branched out in three different directions. Dan went west, along the dry wash, Jake went east toward the hayfield that was a little over a mile and a half away, and Henry went south toward the open desert. Along the way Henry racked his drink-fogged brain trying to sort out fact from fiction about what happened during the night. It was only after he had drunk nearly two canteens full of water that things began to sort themselves out. The cobwebs slowly started falling away and the certainty of what happened became very clear. Chad had snuck out during the night; there was no question about that. Henry hadn’t actually seen him turn the horses loose, but he wasn’t a fool either. It wasn’t much of a stretch to put two and two together.

The thing Henry couldn’t figure, though, was why he did it. Jim was a hard worker, a good hand and as far as Henry knew, never caused any trouble for anybody. Why would Chad want to scuttle him like that? It didn’t make sense. As Henry and his horse scrambled up a steep, rocky trail to the top of the mesa that loomed in front of them, he may not have understood why Chad did what he did, but he knew he didn’t like it. Still, Henry had lived his life making every effort to stay out of other people’s business, just as he wanted them to stay out of his. And this was clearly none of his business.