Free Keeping Secrets by Linda Byler Page A

too.”
    “I’m the only one you have,” Reuben grinned.
    “But my best one, anyway.”
    It happened so suddenly, the only thing Sadie heard was a high whining sound, sort of like a whistle, but more deadly. She didn’t hear a crack. Not the way you’re supposed to when you tell someone you heard a gunshot. It wasn’t really the hard sound of a gun, the sort that makes you wince every time you hear it.
    She knew only one thing: Cody was down. She hit the ground with a sort of grace, the way an accordion folds and produces a beautiful sound from the air pumped into its bellows. One moment she was grazing with Paris; the next, her legs folded beneath her as she made a short, groaning sound, sort of a whoosh. Her head bent back as her legs flailed, she made one pitiful attempt to right herself, then fell. She never took another breath.
    Paris snorted, jerked the reins from Sadie’s hands, then galloped off a short distance, her ears flicking, her head held high, watching the tree line.
    Reuben cried out, a youth’s cry of alarm, innocent in its raw terror. There was no anger in the sound, only the consternation of not being able to understand.
    “Lie down! Reuben, lie flat in the tallest grass!” Sadie hissed.
    He obeyed immediately, and they lay with their ears pressed to the ground.
    Sadie was terrified.
    Who would have done this? Surely not the same people Richard Caldwell talked about. That was in Laredo County at least a hundred miles away. It couldn’t be. Likely a hunter, mistaking Cody’s brown coat for a mule deer or an elk. But hunting season wasn’t until the fall. It had to be someone shooting illegally. A poacher.
    Her ear pressed to the ground, Sadie heard nothing except her own heart thumping wildly, seemingly tripping over itself, the blood rushing into her ears with each thump.
    “Reuben?” she whispered.
    “Hmm?”
    “Do you hear anything? See anything?”
    “No.”
    “We need to get out of here as fast as possible.”
    “I’m not leaving Cody.”
    Slowly they raised their heads, peering through the grasses.
    When there was no movement anywhere, Sadie hoped they’d be able to make a run for it. She had never been so afraid. She was completely panicked now, her mouth so dry she could not swallow.
    “Reuben, you have to go with me. We need to go, NOW! What if … that man with a gun was waiting in the trees or…”
    “He probably left. I’m not leaving Cody.”
    Then he was up, walking to his beloved horse, dropping to his knees, stroking her neck, pushing the heavy mane aside with his hands.
    Sadie crawled over on her stomach, much too frightened to stand.
    Reuben didn’t cry. He just hunkered beside his horse, his eyes flat with the truth of it. Someone had shot Cody.
    Sadie couldn’t bear his quietness. She put a hand on his shoulder.
    Reuben shrugged it off.
    “Don’t.”
    “Reuben, listen. We’ll get you another one. I will take this blame. We never should have gone riding. I knew there was trouble, but I just … well, figured they were in Laredo County.”
    “You mean those men who shot Black Thunder?”
    Sadie nodded.
    Still Reuben stayed, stroking Cody’s neck, her face. When he turned to look at Sadie, the disbelief, the inability to comprehend such evil, turned his eyes a darker color, the corners drooping with the weight of his sadness. His mouth trembled, but no words followed.
    “We have to go. Please.”
    “Not yet.”
    There was a dark pool of blood seeping out beneath Cody’s chest. Sadie watched Reuben carefully, willing him away from the sight of it.
    Suddenly, he drew a sharp breath.
    “C … Cody is bleeding.”
    Sadie nodded.
    “She’s really dead.”
    He bent his head then, put both hands over his face to hide it, as great sobs shook his thin frame. Sadie gathered him in her arms and cried with him, wetting his shoulder with her tears.
    She cried for Cody, for Reuben’s pain, for life when it turned cruel, and for the fact that she didn’t