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Brady, TX
Tuesday before the Odessa Weekend Rodeo
Shane looked over the Brady Cattle Ranch with an eye on how he could improve his own ranch. On the surface, it looked similar, with the vast open pastures, dotted with mesquite trees and native grasses, stretching as far as the eye could see. But the more modern details of the ranch caught his attention. Things that if the UPRC contract worked out, they could put into place at the Viking Ranch.
He and Reba drove up here separately. Shane had been helping Paul Kincaide, the owner of the ranch with the details of settling in his bulls when Reba and Dolly arrived. He watched Dolly charm the old coot and in exchange for a few Instagram lessons, she had full run of the place. Reba had time to give Sverre and the rest of the bulls a thorough examination and was conducting some blood tests to check for allergies or sickness. He was hoping there was some simple explanation over what was causing Sverre to act so erratically.
His brother and Pat were on their way down with Bjorn to replace Sverre on the off chance that Jackson Blevins would come to his senses and pull Sverre from the lineup. Bjorn was a two-year-old bull and wasn’t one of their best, but he’d give the cowboys a good ride.
Shane was considering riding out to the pastures to eat with the ranch hands at the chow wagon for dinner when Reba came up to him. She had set up her equipment in one of the empty feed sheds and had gotten to work with her centrifuge. She had been at it for a couple of hours. He didn’t want to bother her, but he had been getting a little antsy. So Shane was glad to see her, although the look on her face told him he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” she asked softly, her pretty eyes full of sadness and concern.
Oh shit. Shane hoped it wasn’t terminal. He loved that stubborn-ass bull. “Here’s fine.” He patted the porch swing seat next to him. He wished he had taken Paul up on his offer of a pre-dinner beer.
“I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going to come right out with it.” She held his gaze and he appreciated that. “Sverre has traces of an anabolic steroid in his blood and urine, along with another compound that’s too small to trace.”
There was a roaring in his ears. What the actual fuck?
“It’s not fresh, so it has been in his system for a few days. Based on my tests, and yes, I triple-checked them, he was doped up for Ronnie.”
“But they said he was clear.” Shane’s lips felt numb and his voice sounded far away to him.
“They lied. Or someone covered it up. This is a huge problem. Someone is tampering with the results. We don’t know how many bulls have been affected.”
Rage started to edge out the numbness. “Every time you people do these tests, you run the risk of harming my bulls.”
“Hey,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’m on your side, remember?”
Yeah, he did remember. “Sorry,” he muttered and rubbed a hand over his face. “I know it’s not you.”
“And I know it’s not you doing this either. So that leaves us to wonder, who the hell is it?”
“It’s got to be your boss Diane who’s covering it up. That’s why she wanted you out of the trailer.” Shane got up and started pacing around.
Reba steadied herself as the swing swerved hard. “Stop jumping to conclusions.”
“Is Sverre going to be all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, he’s healthy as can be. He could even compete normally in Odessa.”
That was a relief, but there were other things to consider. “Can steroids make him sterile?”
“It could, if there was enough of it.”
This might not be a bull-riding thing, then. It could be a bull-breeding thing.
Reba went on, “Mainly, you see the steroids being used to make the bull bigger. In this case, with that other substance, I think it might be something that caused him to be more violent and aggressive.”
“I’m not going to leave him alone for a moment. Pat, Rick, and I will take shifts. I’ll sleep in the damned pen if I have to.”
He really needed to beat the hell out of whoever was responsible for this. Except he didn’t even know where to begin.
“There’s more,” Reba said shakily.
Shane wasn’t sure he could handle worse news.
“I don’t want to. I really don’t. But I need to bring this to the UPRC’s attention as soon as possible.”
