Slash Pile
Synopsis
In this literary mystery set on a remote ten-thousand-acre cattle ranch in Central Oregon, newlywed Reece Powell sets out on foot across a hayfield glimmering with hoar frost. Her husband Russ promised to help her burn debris slash piles before the summer fire season, but he has failed to return from an impromptu business trip.
Working alone, she uses a drip torch to saturate the logs with diesel and gasoline for a clean burn. On the last pile, the wind shifts with an incoming blizzard. The two-story pile blows up into a raging inferno. Her eyes fall to something odd burning underneath a big log.
A cowboy boot, chestnut-colored. She leans closer to the scorching heat. Red stitching up the side. Pattern of an eagle, wings spread. Russ had special-ordered a pair from Lucchese in San Antonio. “One of a kind.”
In a frenzy she battles the flames, trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Were her eyes lying, her fatigued mind playing tricks, or was Russ’s leg attached to the boot? Had she incinerated her husband’s body? One thing for sure, she did not drag him into that pile. Someone else did. This was no accident.
When Russ fails to return to the ranch, Reece has good reason not to call the sheriff. Alone in a world she knows little about, she fights to keep the ranch from going under. It’s imperative she identify the killer before she becomes his next victim. But as she meets the locals, she is shocked to realize that each has a motive for murder.