One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(22)

Then another heavy object landed in the truck bed, raising the front end up until the passengers were practically looking at the ceiling before it finally popped back down. It slowly settled back down and what was in the mushroom cloud started raining down on the truck.

Rhett took a deep breath then grabbed his nose. “That’s not oil.”

“Hell, no, that’s shit!” Betsy screamed.

Leah gasped. “I thought it was a tornado.”

Rhett saw a couple of headlights through the fog of the stuff falling all around them as it blew in the same breeze that made the swings move. He squinted to see if it was help or the culprits, but then they were gone. He took out his cell phone and punched in the number to the bunkhouse, but nothing happened. When he looked down, his phone was registering no service.

“Looks like we’re stuck, ladies,” he said.

“Granny is going to kill me,” Betsy said.

“If my Granny don’t get to you first,” Leah told her. “Y’all Gallaghers just blew up our school.”

“Not the school, the septic tank. That is not mud covering my truck,” Rhett said.

They sat there in stunned silence, their noses twitching and eyes so wide that the whites showed all around the edges. Rhett turned on the windshield wipers and hit the button for water to wash the crap away. Long before he had a clean glass, the reservoir ran out of water.

Leah moaned when she saw what was left of the school. It had no windows, no doors, and what had been painted white was now dripping with brown liquid. The walls still stood upright but the roof had big holes in it. A toilet sat upright on the roof, and one had landed upside down on the lawn.

“Were there only four toilets?” Betsy asked.

“I can’t remember,” Leah answered.

“Lord help us all. They’ll dub this one the shit war,” Betsy said.

“And it’s your fault, like the pig war was your fault,” Leah said.

“You started it when you burned down our school.”

“It might be covered in crap, but this truck is still neutral. What y’all should be worried about is how in the hell we’re getting out of here. We’ve got a flat tire and a toilet blocking our way if we could go forward. Plus, there’s another one in the bed of the truck that could possibly have knocked a hole through the metal and damaged everything underneath it, in which case, even if the tire wasn’t blown, we can’t go backwards,” Rhett said.

Betsy threw the back of her hand onto her forehead. “We couldn’t drive in this slime even with four wheels that worked perfectly. I’m a dead woman.”

“You got any cell service, Leah?” Rhett asked.

She shook her head. “If I had power left in my phone, I would have loaned it to Betsy back at the bar, so I wouldn’t have had to ride with her.”

Betsy whipped around as much as she could and glared at Rhett. “Why didn’t you think of that?”

“Because I was tired and trying to get Leah’s truck started. This is not my fault, ladies,” he protested.

A truck drove up beside them and honked. Betsy rolled the window down and Declan yelled across the distance, “What the hell happened? We heard a… Good Lord, what are you doing here? I thought the smell was from all this crap and now I find out it’s from a Gallagher.”

Betsy shot him a dirty look. “I was sitting beside your sister when this happened, so don’t go blaming it on me.”

Declan’s phone rang and he hit a button. “Granny, the Gallaghers have blown up our school. Looks like they did it through the old cistern we use as a septic tank. Everything is dripping with crap. Stay in the house. The breeze is coming from the north tonight, and you do not want to smell this. We should have posted guards.” There was a long pause as he kept nodding. “Leah is sitting in Rhett O’Donnell’s truck with him on one side and Betsy Gallagher on the other side, so I don’t think it was Rhett that did it.”

“Give me that phone,” Leah said tersely as she carefully reached through the window to take it from Declan’s outstretched hand.

“You drop it. You retrieve it,” he said.

She hung on like a bulldog with a ham bone. “Granny, my truck battery went dead at the bar and Betsy had a flat tire and no spare, so Rhett was taking both of us home when all this rained down on us. His truck is ruined.” There was another long pause, and then she said, “Yes, ma’am, I understand.”

“So?” Betsy asked.

“Declan, you are supposed to take Betsy to the back side of our property and turn her loose. You can let her use your phone if you want to, so she can call for someone to come get her, or she can follow the river until she’s past Fiddle Creek and to Wild Horse. Rhett, you are to sit right here with me until more help comes,” Leah said. “Granny says we’re not even calling the sheriff because the damn Gallaghers own him. She wants you to deliver a message, Betsy. You are to tell Naomi that hell is going to rain down on the Gallagher family.”

“Hell won’t be as bad as what’s just rained down on y’all,” Betsy said, smarting off at her.

“Then you’re admitting that you did it?” Declan asked.

“I did not admit anything, and I do not know anything, so torturing me won’t do a bit of good,” Betsy said.