On the night of September twenty-first – ten days before the Cow Cutter's Ball – a gentle breeze blew sweetly across the plain. The sky was clear and a dome of stars twinkled high overhead, standing out brightly against the canvas of night. The temperature hovered at a caressing seventy-five degrees, even as the hour moved to the dead of night.
An owl hooted knowingly as the yearling calves out on the flats gathered together in a bunch, sleeping upright on the ground, their legs tucked comfortably underneath them. In his pen, Cooksin did likewise, occasionally chewing cud that he brought up from one of his four stomachs, grinding casually away at his feed while moving in and out of dreamland. A couple bats flew overhead, feeding on nocturnal insects, acrobatically swooping to pick them out of the air, occasionally landing in the pen to finish off an unwary target. In his bunkhouse, Jake slept an unrestful sleep, twisting and turning, trying to find a comfortable angle for his nightmare. Inside the house, Tory had similar problems, but not so with Pete and Py, who in their individual beds slept the sleep of the innocent. The windows in the house had all been left open, allowing the mild breeze to cool the interior. Even the bedroom doors were only half-shut, allowing greater air circulation throughout the house. Pete's snoring could be heard, sounding like a steam valve, rhythmically closing and opening. Py could occasionally be heard to mumble something inaudible. He sounded vaguely to be explaining something to some dream companion, perhaps reiterating some jewel of cowboying recently passed down from Pete. Out in the countryside a pheasant rooster occasionally let out a premature announcement of daybreak. The pigs, lying in the dirt out by Pete's swimming tank, occasionally grunted awake and then returned to their slumber.
In the pasture, on the far side of the barn, west of the house, a lone gunman moved with stealth, trying to get in position for his shot. Several rabbits were flushed from tall grass as he walked quietly toward Parker Ranch. He thought he saw other forms, moving around him in the dark – maybe a skunk, or a possum. He wondered about rattlesnakes, as he found his way to the killing zone, and occasionally looked back in the direction from which he came, making mental notes on his exact location, on his escape route, and on the field road where he had left his vehicle.
In the distance he could see the Parker ranch house. The windbreak of tall pines rose in black silhouette behind the house, the slow-turning, creaking windmill near the corral appeared as the outline of a huge sunflower. Another rabbit bolted from underfoot, and startled him, causing his heart to beat faster than before, though it was racing from the first. Sneaking around ranch land in the deepest part of night was dangerous business. If the critters prowling the blackness didn't make him nervous enough, there was always the possibility that the property owner might also be waiting out there in the night, also carrying a gun. There wasn't much patience in these parts for trespassers, especially dangerous ones that came in the night. He became more cautious the closer he got to the ranch. He was here to do a job, and then get out.
Fifty yards away, Cooksin appeared like a huge, spectral object, glowing white in the pool of blackness. He appeared to gaze casually in the direction of the night caller, lying upright on the ground, his head held high atop his broad, muscled neck.
Occasionally his purple tongue would roll out of his mouth, and he'd crane himself around to lick at a spot on his side, then he would return his gaze to the dark, human form out in the adjoining field. A reflection of moonlight would occasionally glint off the shiny black steel of the killer's rifle. Cooksin would blow an unconcerned breath from his nostrils, sometimes bending down to sniff at the grasses growing up before him.
The gunman found the spot he liked, and then carefully explored the grass there with his feet, flattening it, hoping to scare off any vermin that might be there. He lay down on his stomach and adjusted the sights on his rifle, paying close attention to the direction of the wind, moving the bead-sight up higher on its post. He could see his target through the rails of the corral – not an easy shot, but within the acceptable range for a marksman of his caliber. He put the rifle to his shoulder and drew down upon his mark. Cooksin once again tossed his head around to lick at his sides, and then he looked back in the direction of the dark, distant form. It was as if he heard a sound – the sound of a weapon being cocked for firing – and he raised his head high, staring dumbly into the black night. Then there was a gunshot.
The sound of the rifle telescoped across the plain, and in his room Pete sat straight up in his bed, as did Jake out in his bunk. The sound reverberated, like an unbound echo, ringing out with a timber of finality that seemed deep and awful, too stark and real for the hour of the day, intrusive and unnatural. Py, too, sat up in his bed, as did Tory.
Jake appeared at the door to the bunkhouse, opening it and looking out into the night. He was stark naked, but he took a few steps into the yard, not totally cognizant of what he was doing, instinctively listening for additional sounds that might fill in the blanks around that which he had just heard. A light went on in the kitchen and in a moment Pete appeared at the back door, wearing only his union suit. He saw Jake standing out in the windbreak. "Are you okay?" he asked. For some reason it had occurred to him that maybe he wasn't, that perhaps it was Jake who had shattered the calm of night with a rifle blast. The thought had crossed Tory's mind as well, and she stood at her bedroom window, peering out from behind the screen. Her first thought was that Jake had shot himself. She thought about what had transpired between them, and the distant way that he had been, and all she could think was that in his shame, Jake had done himself in. Py appeared next to Pete, on the back porch.
"I'm okay," Jake said to Pete, not too loud, as if the peace of night was still intact, and he didn't wish to disturb it. "Where'd it come from?"
"I don't know," Pete said. "It sounded close," Py said.
In her room, Tory closed her eyes, relieved to hear Jake's voice. She said a quick thanks to God that her worst fear had not been realized.
"It sounded like a rifle shot," Jake said, stating the obvious.
Pete and Py stood on the back porch, frozen with uncertainty about what to do. "You didn't hear anything else?" Pete asked Jake, to which he replied – "No, I was asleep." There was a moment of silence, as the three of them looked out into the yard. "I'll get some clothes on and take a look around," Jake said, and he ducked back into the bunk to quickly get dressed.
Py, too, went back to his room for clothes. Pete's work boots were on the back porch, and he slipped them on and walked out into the yard, opening the back gate to the picket fence, and starting in the direction of the barn. It seemed to him that the shot had come from there. In a moment Jake joined him, as did Py.
The night had turned still again, although the blast had awakened the calves out in the pasture. They bawled noisily and without purpose, odd for them at this time of night, but beyond that everything was standard quiet. The three of them walked out to the barn, none of them knowing what they were looking for, thinking that perhaps they would come upon whatever joker it was who was fool enough to fire a weapon this time of night. There was no sign of anyone. The pigs came and joined them in their search of the grounds, grunting noisily as they came running across the yard. Py thought perhaps he heard the meowing of a cat in the weeds, and wondered if it wasn't his tom. Pete, almost as an afterthought, went over to the corral to check on Cooksin. The big bull still lay there on his side, in a sitting up position.
"I don't know," Pete said, shaking his head. "Whatever it was, it's gone now. I guess all we can do is turn back in. We can take another look in the morning."
"I guess so," Jake said unconvincingly, surveying the black horizon. "It's a hell of a way to get woke up," Pete added grumpily.
"I just hope I can get back to sleep," Py said, and the three of them headed back to their respective quarters.
In the darkness, a thousand yards from the house, the gunman made his way back to his waiting truck. He planned to rest there for a while, letting the nigh
t close back in around him, before chancing the start of that engine. He removed the remaining bullets from the rifle and put the weapon back in its scabbard, then crawled in behind the wheel, being careful to close the door in such a way that it made as little noise as possible. In the distance, he could see the lights go back off at the Parker ranch house. He lit a cigarette and sat quietly, waiting for time to pass before finally he cranked the ignition key and started the engine. Moving slowly and without lights, he drove on up the field road and disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER 29 – Investigation
"I'd say it's either a 30.06 or a 30-30. It's large caliber, whatever the case."
Ben Miller's Deputy Sheriff, Gene Lichner, worked his finger into the bullet hole, feeling the roundness of the entry wound, exploring it for additional insights. Lichner was an avid hunter and a handy guy to have involved in a weapons investigation.
Ben looked at Pete, who looked pale as a ghost. "I'm really sorry, Pete," he said, his sincerity deep and obvious. "I know how much this animal meant to you."
"From the look of the wound, I'd say the shooter was quite a ways away."
Lichner pointed out to the field west of the corral. "There's no way I can tell for sure, but my guess is he was out there a good fifty to one hundred yards, and somehow he managed to shoot between those fence railings. Whoever did it, he's a hell of a shot. I can’t imagine how he pulled it off, dark as it was last night."
Tory stood next to her father, holding his hand. His grip seemed weak to her, as if this morning's discovery had taken his last ounce of strength. Py stood nearby, tears in his eyes, and Jake leaned against the rails of the fence, and his back turned to the scene, staring out toward the open fields.
A single stream of blood, mostly dried now, trailed its way from the wound on Cooksin's forehead, snaking down between his eyes and running the length of his huge snout. It puddled on the ground below where his chin rested in the dirt. The big animal looked peaceful, as if he were only sleeping. It didn't appear that he had suffered. The executioner had done his job well, with a single bullet to the brain. Mercifully, the bull probably never knew what hit him. There had been a sound, and he was dead, frozen in a final, graceful bow.
Ben looked at Pete, almost unable to find it in him to ask the questions that it was his job to ask. "Do you have any ideas about who might have done this? Anyone with a motive?"
Pete just stared at the dead bull, shaking his head. "Who would shoot a stupid animal?" he said, lost in a fog.
Word of the incident had spread rapidly through the cattle community, and even as they spoke another pickup rolled into the yard. It was Jess Willingham, joining other neighbors who were already on the scene to behold the tragedy.
"I suppose it's possible that it was just some kid, out horsin' around," Ben said, but his deputy didn't buy it. "Kids shoot .22s," he said apathetically. "This here was done with a hunting rifle, a big-game gun. Kids don't get drunk and shoot those, not in my experience anyway."
"I know this bull was getting you back into business," Ben said. "Is there anyone who you know of who might not have wanted to see that happen."
Pete raised his weary eyes and looked at Ben. He shook his head, indicating that he didn't know any such person, though Frank Walker came to mind. Frank didn't want to see him getting back into business, and he had made Pete aware of it, but he wasn’t about to make any blind accusations. He'd had troubles with Frank Walker – that was for certain – but he couldn't see Frank doing such a thing. Of course, the Frank Walker he had known his entire life seemed different from the Frank Walker he knew now. But what suspicions he had were not going to be made public.
Tory could practically hear her father's thinking, and she knew that it was Frank Walker who was on his mind. She had nothing to lose where Walker was concerned, and she thought to mention his various land offers to Sheriff Miller, but bit her tongue instead. She did it out of respect for her father: if he wasn't going to jump to conclusions, then neither was she. Pete had always been reserved about his criticisms where Frank had been concerned, always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he wasn't going to put Frank under the microscope, neither was she.
Py, too, kept quiet, though he knew as much as anyone about the pressure Frank Walker had been putting on Pete to abandon his plans and sell his land. He looked at Pete and Tory, and somehow it seemed inappropriate for him to insinuate himself into what seemed to him to be a most personal affair. He, too, would defer to the older man.
"Jake – you have any ideas about who might have done this?" Ben had to holler out to him, standing away from the others as he was.
Jake turned and looked at him without changing his position at the fence. His eyes, too, seemed watery. He just shook his head. He had no idea – none whatsoever.
"I'll have a look out there – where the shot probably came from," Lichner said. "I'll come with you," Ben said, and the two of them walked to the back side of the corral and crawled between the rails, gaining entry to the pasture behind the ranch. They were looking for the firing site, hoping to find an empty shell casing, or perhaps a boot print – anything that might have been left behind by a gunman, and that would help identify the responsible party. "God damn I feel bad for Pete," Ben said quietly to his deputy, as the two of them walked out across the flat. "I'd sure like to find out who did this, not that it'll bring his bull back."
Pete's loss was total. He had no insurance on the animal. His investment was gone, along with his plans to become a commercial breeder. That's why Jess Willingham was among those who showed up at the crime scene this morning. Jess didn't say as much, but he was anxious to find out if the rumors were true, for he had a stake in Pete's operation. This was the day he was to have delivered the brood cows he had contracted to breed to Cooksin. He had already begun culling them from his larger herd, and when the news came this morning, he already had them in a separate holding pen. He was planning a short cattle drive up the road to Parker Ranch. Now his plans were shot, too.
Pete went over to him, leaving Tory's side to have a word with his neighbor.
She watched as the two men talked in quiet tones, each wearing the world-weary expressions of working men, caught in a moment of honest doubt, when all they had left to share was their disquietude over the way things always seemed to work out. The margins were narrow for both, the difference between profit and loss. There were no little setbacks, close to the edge as they lived. The cattleman's life was slowly becoming a holdover from an earlier time, and now, whenever any one of their kind suffered a setback, everyone knew it may be their last. It was getting pretty hard for old cowboys to get back up.
After a while Ben and Deputy Lichner returned from their search of the back pasture. Pete went up to them and asked if they found anything. Ben just shook his head. "There's a place out there where the grass is kind of matted down, but . . ." He shook his head again. "We didn't find anything else." "Which makes me think even more that whoever did this had some purpose in mind," Lichner added. "He knew what he was doing." Ben was uncomfortable with the implication and nodded that he wasn't certain. "All I'd say is we don't know anything at all about who did it," he said. "A pretty damned good shot," Lichner reiterated, again implying information that investigation hadn't confirmed.
"What makes you think that somebody didn't just walk up to the fence there, pull the trigger, then run like hell?" Dick Kurtz, another neighboring farmer, and not a retiring type, imposed himself into their conversation. He was another who had showed up on the strength of the fast-circulating rumor.
"Well, maybe," Ben said, patiently allowing the intrusion. "Pete and the others say it sounded further off than that, though. But there's no knowing – not with what we've got now."
All the time they were talking, Ben Miller had a thought rolling around in the back of his mind that he considered too volatile to share. He was thinking about the escape route. Pete and his crew were certain that whoever did the shooting wa
s not using the county road that ran past the front of his property. The only other probable escape route would have been the field road that connected to Frank Walker's land, and eventually ran directly into Frank Walker's ranch yard.
Ben had tried to envision the movements of the gunman after he fired his shot.
He imagined that he had, as his deputy suggested, fired the shot from some distance away, so that he would not be seen as he moved quickly through the night, away from the murder scene. It was a good half mile over to the field road, and he would have had to cross a drainage ditch to get to it. He figured that the gunman had left his vehicle there. Maybe he was not alone: perhaps someone else waited in the getaway car. In his mind's eye, he could see the vehicle driving away from the scene, moving up the field road, very likely with its lights off, being careful to make as little noise as possible. As Lichner engaged Kurtz in an exchange over the feasibility of someone firing at a target, at night, from that distance, with a light breeze blowing, and being accurate enough to hit the "bull’s eye," Ben considered what to do next.
He knew all about the problems between Pete and Frank Walker. The first thing he wanted to do was go have a word with the rancher, who was noticeably absent from the gaggle of onlookers this morning. No one, in fact, from Walker Ranch had come to see what the fuss was all about. They were closer neighbors, proximity-wise, than many of those whom had showed. Ben didn't want to make anything special of it, but it didn't escape his attention. He'd ask Frank Walker about it, and he wanted to drive out onto that field road to see if there were fresh tire tracks that might shed some light on the investigation. More than anything, he wanted to see if there were fresh tire tracks that led into Frank's yard. Knowing the layout of the Walker spread, nobody would have driven through that yard in the middle of night without escaping notice. That was the next stop in his investigation. He wanted to talk to Frank and his cowboys.
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