96

You've only been standing still for a moment when you hear a raised voice coming from just a little further down the road:

"Just get the hell out of here!"

At once you see people's heads turning towards the far end of the street. Moving away from the doorway slightly, you squint to see where the noise is coming from—and after a few moments you catch sight of two men, both maybe just slightly older that you, facing each other in the middle of the walkway. From what you can see, they seem to be standing either side of the "Save Our Ranches!" sign, both of them raising their hands as if expecting the other to come charging towards them.

"Why should I get out of here?" the one closest to you, with reddish-brown hair, shouts back to the other. Even from this far away, you can hear his voice shaking. "You're the one who's been destroying half the town. Smashing the Town Hall windows—trying to steal the money from the fair—and breaking into the old general store so you can get rid of that tree you planted there."

Suddenly, it hits you what must have started this confrontation. For whatever reason, the brown-haired man seems to think the other is responsible for all of those different things—but why? Does he know something about those incidents?

"Just stop it, Kevin," the other man, with pale blond hair, cries back—and with that, you realize that these two men don't seem to be strangers. "You really think anybody's going to believe you? You really think I'd go around breaking windows with a big Twin Ranch logo on my head? It's not like people wouldn't recognize I'm the owner's son."

A small space has formed around the men now, with people either hurrying past or standing back to watch the argument. Although you hear some calls for the two of them to get out of the street, they seem to go completely ignored.

"I think people will believe it now your mom's in jail, Trent," replies Kevin, the brunette. Even though he's squaring his shoulders, you think you hear more desperation than anger in his shivering voice—and by now, it's quite clear that there must be some history between them. "She tried to frame my mom for destroying her own exhibit, at her own ranch, and they found her out. Your mom said herself she wanted to sabotage Tamblyn Acres. Who says you weren't involved too?"

Trent, the blond, shakes his head forcefully; but even in spite of that, he does seem to know what he's talking about.

"I had nothing to do with what my mom did—and I haven't done anything that you're saying. I didn't break those windows, or try to steal any money. And that tree—I didn't do any of it."

His voice is resolute, and there doesn't seem to be any hesitation in his denial. But nevertheless, Kevin stands his ground.

"Can you prove that?" he crows. "Can you prove it wasn't you?"

Trent hesitates; for a moment, you think you see a flash of fear on his face.

And as a few more seconds of silence go by, it starts to seem as if he doesn't have a ready answer.

"Look—you know it wasn't me, Kevin—I was working at the fair when that money nearly got stolen. And—I was at the Town Meeting when—"

"If you can't prove it, then nobody will believe you either," Kevin responds, his voice growing more and more agitated. "So don't tell me I'm the one who needs to stop; your family's already screwed mine over enough."

"Kevin—please, before somebody gets hurt, or you get in even worse trouble," Trent says weakly, losing most of his voice. "Before both of us lose—"

But before he can finish, Kevin lunges forward, rips the "Save Our Ranches!" sign off of its post, and snaps it in half before throwing it to the ground.

"You don't care about 'us', or 'our ranches'," he cries, tears streaming down his face. "We both know only one of us can win. The Town Council won't help us, nobody else cares that the ranches are dying. And if your mom is going to try and ruin our family, then I'm not just going to take it. I need to do something to help us survive."

With that, he turns on the spot and rushes away through the shocked crowd. For a long while, it doesn't seem as if anybody knows how to react—least of all Trent, who you see staring down at his broken sign. As a lot of confused and questioning murmurs begin to arise around you, Trent steps forward and gathers up the pieces of wood in his arms; then, without a word, he slips out of sight.

At last the gathered crowd starts to move on along the street, and as they do you set off walking again as well. When you pass the spot where the sign had been, you see that Trent seems to have dropped a couple of fliers he was handing out before Kevin interrupted, all bearing the words "Save Our Ranches". You have no way of guessing the full truth behind what you just saw—but if it really is true that either of those men had something to do with any of the incidents they mentioned, and that all of it has some connection to the two ranches just outside of town, then it's certainly not what you would have expected to find out. Whatever the reality is, you get the feeling that there's an issue here that runs much deeper than just the last few weeks.

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