“Yes, ma’am, unfortunately, thievery is a healthy business, and for people who raise cattle, rustling is a real threat.”

“There aren’t any other neighbors close by Daddy’s house, so that made it easy for them to come and go without being seen,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s what we noticed. Okay, sorry to have bothered you at work, but you’ve cleared up some questions we had. Thank you for your time.”

“Yes, of course,” Rhonda said, and then hung up.

The other two nurses couldn’t help but overhear Rhonda’s side of the conversation, but before they could question her, Hope Talbot walked up. One look at their faces and she knew something had happened.

“What’s going on?” Hope asked.

Rhonda sighed. “Have you talked to Jack this afternoon?”

“No, but I saw Duke earlier in the day when he dropped Cathy Terry off for treatment.”

“Sorry to be the one to break the bad news, but that was a deputy from the Sheriff’s department on the phone. Someone used Dad’s old place as access to get to the back side of the Talbot property. They stole some of your cattle. They wanted to know if I’d rented it out to anyone, and of course we had not, so there’s no way of telling who did it.”

Hope groaned.

“Oh my God! I need to call home,” she said, and headed for the break room.

She already knew they were going to be upset, and she was just sick about the loss. As soon as she found a quiet place, she called her husband.

“Hello, honey. I was just about to call you,” Jack said. “We’ve had some trouble out here today.”

“I just heard,” Hope said. “Some deputies from county called Rhonda Bailey to ask her about her dad’s property. She said the people who stole the cattle gained access through her dad’s place.”

“So, they’ve already confirmed what we thought. Duke thought that might be the case,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” Hope said. “Do you think we have any chance of getting them back?”

“I’d say slim to none. If they took them straight to an auction, they’re probably already gone.”

“But we had them all ear-tagged,” Hope said.

“Yes, but those tags can be removed. What’s done is done. We can’t change it. But we did move all of the cattle that were in that pasture up closer to the house. They’d have to go through gates and be really gutsy to come this close to the house now and try for more. What I am surprised about is how they even knew cattle were in that back pasture, and how they knew they could get to it through the Bailey property.”

“Sounds like someone local, doesn’t it?” Hope said.

“Yes, it does, but I can’t imagine who it might be. Hopefully they’ll figure it out and that will be that,” Jack said.

“Are there any clues at all?” Hope asked.

“Not really… oh, we did find an interesting boot print they’d left behind. The heel on a left boot has a long slash on it. It was deep enough that it showed up in the dirt that way.”