the drive back to town in Brutus.
Ward had admitted silently to himself that he was going to miss her and her hound dog too. Ward didn’t mind making breakfast for the two of them, and he suspected the hole they’d leave in his life would be ten miles wide.
“Stay here,” he called, breaking into a jog. Around the next building, Bull House came into view. Dot’s big, burly dump truck sat there, so she hadn’t left yet. Ward’s feet slipped on the snow-covered ground that had already started to melt. The rocks beneath his work boots moved with the earth, and then, all at once, it stopped.
The front door of Bull House opened, and Dot appeared.
“Dot,” Ward called.
“What was that?”
He passed the dump truck and arrived on the cleared sidewalk in front of the house. “You okay?”
“I’ve never been in an earthquake.”
“I’m not sure that was an earthquake.” Ward went up the steps and took Dot into his arms. “I’m…I think….” He honestly had no idea what to think. He’d never been in an earthquake either, but for some reason, he thought he still hadn’t.
His phone started to buzz and chime, but Ward ignored it.
“I’m okay,” Dot said, stepping back. “I think maybe I better get out of here before I curse the ranch with more of my bad luck.” She grinned up at him, and Ward sure would like to kiss her as the last thing she experienced about Shiloh Ridge. Maybe then she’d come back.
He leaned down, and the smile slipped a little. Her hand curved up around the back of his neck right when his phone rang. He lifted it as he still held it in his hand. Ace’s name sat there. “It’s my brother.”
“Better get it then.” Dot fell back, moving out of his arms like smoke dissipating into the sky.
Ward saw his romantic kiss with the glorious Dot Crocket disappear the same way. He swiped on the call. “What?” he growled.
“It was a landslide,” Ace said. “We lost the road leading off the ranch. The road from the Ranch House is gone too.”
“Gone?” Ward asked, his mind screaming at him to get into the back yard and see what Ace was talking about. “What do you mean gone?” He met Dot’s eyes, and she spun back to the house.
They both started inside, and her long legs kept up with his. She went out the sliding glass door as Ace said, “I mean gone, Ward. Covered in earth and rock. I’m standing on my back deck, and I almost lost it. The cliff is sheared off here, and you know how there’s that last, final, steep rise before getting to the arch and coming onto the ranch?”
Yes, Ward thought, but he couldn’t get his voice to work. He crossed the deck and jogged toward the barn. He couldn’t believe how close it was, nor could he believe he’d very nearly died standing right there next to the swing set.
“It cleaved off,” Ace said. “Slid down the hill toward the Kinder Ranch land. There’s no way we’re getting off the ranch. They can’t get down from the Ranch House either.”
“I’m in the back yard,” he said, sucking at the air from all the running. He paused at the corner of the barn, aware that Dot had arrived only a few moments after him. “I don’t believe this….”
Ward couldn’t speak as he stared at the carnage in front of him. The road that branched off from the main road and led to the Ranch House was, indeed, “gone.” The soil, bushes, rocks, and weeds that had once populated the steep decline from the back yard to the road—and beyond—had broken off and slid down.
A particularly big boulder—at least twice the size of Brutus the dump truck—sat right in the middle of the road, a small tree with its roots pointing toward the sky right beside it.
“Holy cow,” Dot said, her voice just as awed as his.
Ward looked right, and while the homestead was now a hulking two story building he could barely see past, he believed Ace when he said that road was gone too. The part he could see a little lower had plenty of debris covering it.
It looked like someone had dug down to the bottom of the salad bowl to pull up all the veggies so everything got coated in salad dressing. Only this was soil and sand, sagebrush and stones.
It was all the innards of the Earth, and they were in all the wrong