CH 1
DEVIL'S RIDGE-SAGUACHE COUNTY CO.
Miller Farm
Diego Escareno sat in his lazy boy smoking a Marlboro Red, watching his favorite western channel.
A half-eaten T.V dinner tray sat on a wooden folding dinner table that Diego had pushed to the side so he could pull the recliner out, the tray had started to gather flies. The chair creaked as Diego shifted his weight and he felt himself settle into the familiar indention his large body had left in it after years of use.
He took a long drag from his cigarette and flicked the ash absent mindedly into the remains of the T.V dinner. A large cloud of smoke drifted from his nose and mouth and swirled lazily up to add its mark on the tobacco yellowed ceiling. The volume on the T.V climbed up a few decibels as the handsome yet rugged hero of this particular western rode dramatically into a nest of tents, guns blazing, and rode out the other side with the fair-haired maiden, all too happy to be saved from whatever fate had awaited her at the hands of the red savages.
Diego smiled and took another long drag. This had been his evening routine for just over ten years now and he enjoyed the hell out of it.
He had bounced around previously for several years as a ranch hand and horse trainer, and had rodeoed before that in his early 20s. That ended when a knee injury from busting broncs had put him in debt up to his ears with medical bills, retired whatever dreams he'd had of going pro and left him with a limp and an addiction to painkillers. He landed a string of jobs on ranches around the state to run from the debt collectors and spent the next 20 years of his life working through the week and boozing through the weekends.
All that time in the bars led to a lot of one-night stands, drugs and a handful of aggravated assault charges. It wasn’t until that last assault charge on a bartender in Alamosa had put him in prison and lead to a forced work transition program that he had landed a job on The Miller Ranch.
The Miller Ranch sat on a 30-acre plot of land at the southwest tip of a small town called Devil’s Ridge which sat at the Southwest tip of Saguache County Colorado and they specialized in breeding and training top tier show horses for the surrounding area.
The family themselves are Old Money though and own several large butcher shops around the state as well as a trucking operation among other things. Some of those other things are…frowned upon by the law…and that’s how Diego had actually earned his cabin. Breaking horses and training experience came in handy sure but the Millers were more interested in his shadier background when they had hired him on and had made good use of it throughout his time here.
He was quick with a blade and he knew his way around intimidating people who owed debts to the Millers when they decided it was time to collect. If he thought he needed help, which was rare, he'd just grab one of the other cons and take them with him. The Millers didn’t care how he went about it as long as it was quiet, and Diego was very good at being quiet.
Over the years he'd put together a small crew of men and they handled most of the work now that Diego was in his fifties.
Shame too, he thought, he missed it.
Diego took another long drag from his cigarette and was lost in reminiscing on a job he’d done on an old man that had let his payments to the ranch go past due when the T.V screen went black along with every light in his cabin and the room fell into silence.
Diego sat up in his chair muttering something about the electrical circuits needing a damn inspection and brushed crumbs and cigarette ashes off his sweat soiled tank top. He limped into the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight from the junk drawer when a glint of faint blue light caught his eye through the kitchen window looking out into the forested land at the back of the property.
He stopped and peered through the window, focusing intently on the little light as it started to move. It seemed to glide both through and around the trees in a winding pattern, never growing or shrinking, just floating and moving.
“What the hell?” Diego muttered under his breath'
As the words left his mouth he thought he could hear a faint sound, like a whisper, in the darkness. Diego’s pulse started to rise as he strained to listen, to hear the whisper again, the flashlight he held in his hand all but forgotten in the moment.
He leaned on the little counter, watching, listening…and yet…. nothing.
He waited a moment more, certain that he had heard something but not sure what it could’ve been. He leaned back for a moment, rubbing his eyes with one meaty fist and peered out the window again only to see that the strange light had seemingly disappeared and that the forest had gone dark again, much like his little cabin had gone dark.
He turned away from the window, shaking his head, chuckling and thinking maybe he had spent a little too much time out here by himself when he heard the whisper again.
This time though, he thought, it had sounded like a woman whispering his name and it had sounded somehow much closer.
He froze in the moment. The voice was soft and feminine and seemed to reach out to him, pulling at him. He didn't know how to explain it but something in that voice both terrified and aroused him in ways that he could not control and as he began to turn back to the window he could feel his erection growing with his pulse as his heart began to hammer in his chest.
Time seemed to slow to an agonizing pace as Diego turned his head, the flashlight dropped from his now sweating hand and clattered to the floor. It was forgotten entirely as he forgot himself, forgot the cabin he was standing in and the lights that had went out.
A figure appeared then, just outside his window. The most beautiful eyes Diego had ever seen in his life stared back at him, into him. They glowed like the light had in the forest and something in them made him want to run screaming and yet, at the same time, he wanted to fall deep into the abyss of pleasure they promised.
They glowed, soft, in the darkness and as he continued to stare into them he felt himself falling away, fading into blackness. All the while he could hear that same soft feminine voice whispering his name over and over again, coaxing and calling him...so gently, so patiently.
He could feel his body responding without the need for his consent or thought and his heart had begun to drum so hard he felt as though he’d just railed a huge line of cocaine. Still, he continued to stare into those soft blue eyes, continued to fall into them until he had found himself standing in the small clearing behind his cabin with no recollection of ever moving.
He was standing there now though, bare foot in the soft wet grass perspiring heavily in the autumn air and staring at the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was naked in the bright moonlight and her skin seemed to shine like freshly polished silver. Raven black hair almost blue in the lunar light fell carelessly around her porcelain white shoulders and framed her ample breasts. She looked at Diego with those soft radiant eyes and whispered his name once more as she slowly moved towards him, hips swaying and moving in such a way that Diego could almost feel them against his own thighs. He let out a soft moan under his breath.
She was close to him now, he could smell her.
Soft rain, desert florals and…. something else…something wrong, something sickly sweet, coppery and…. dead? The thought flitted through his mind and was dismissed as quickly as it came. He was far too gone to let such trivial thoughts bother him now, besides, she was still whispering his name over and over and the sound of her voice gave him a high unlike any he had ever experienced before.
She was on him now, he could feel her.
Strong but delicate hands caressing his chest and arms, her ample breasts compressed against his barreled chest and her hair… so soft… so dark. She was whispering still, he could hear more than his name now that she was closer.
It wasn’t until she had taken the sides of his face in her hands and leaned into his ear that he started to scream.
It wasn’t until she snapped his neck that he stopped. She whispered once more and laughed ever so softly.
Diego’s body turned toward the Miller family home and started to walk.
