A Silver Christmas (Tipperary Carriage Company Mystery Book 4)

by J A Whiting

  "These two wonderful dogs," she said, "herded him right to me. I think he's all right, but I'll look him over."

  "Okay," said Ross. "You put him up. We're going to get Stanley into the barn."

  Mae led Silver back to his stall. A cursory examination showed no evidence of gunshot or any other kind of damage to him. She closed up his door and then hurried back as Ross and Andrew supported Stanley between them and carried him back into the barn.

  "Chair, please, Mae," called Ross, and she ran to get a couple of plastic chairs out of the tack room. In a moment, Stanley was seated in one chair and had his injured foot propped up on the other one, right across the barn aisle from the stall that now held three prisoners. Andrew stayed beside the man and Mae could see that he was keeping a close eye on his patient.

  She hurried into the empty stall where Ross had been waiting, grabbed the blanket he was using from the straw, and hurried back to wrap it around Stanley.

  Ross stood next to Brandon, looking down into the stall-turned-holding-cell. The first woman they'd seen sat in a far corner with her hands tied behind her back, while the other one, the one who'd been shooting, sat leaning against the handcuffed man, also with her hands tied, crying quietly against his shoulder.

  Mae realized that the shooter was leaning against the young man who had been walking around with the first woman thief all those nights at the Holiday Fair. Obviously they'd been working together.

  "Just the three of you?" said Ross.

  They glanced up with sullen, angry expressions. The man gave him a brief nod and looked away, but Mae saw the two women exchange quick looks before also nodding.

  "Good," said Ross. Then he paused and very pointedly reloaded the Colt .45 right in front of them before replacing it in his shoulder holster. "Sheriff's deputies are on their way. I'm sure you'll just wait quietly in here. Lucky for you, Ms. Monahan keeps her barn very clean."

  Ross turned away from them and walked out into the open gravel yard between the barn, the garage, and the house. Mae and Brandon followed him.

  "Still no deputies," she said. "Bad night for them to be busy."

  Ross glanced at her. "I think it's all under control now. Horse all right?"

  "Looks like it. Stanley's not hurt too bad, is he?"

  "Andrew's watching him like a hawk," said Brandon. "I think he's going to make a very good doctor."

  "He’s getting some practice tonight," said Mae. "I just hope that Stanley will be okay."

  The quiet night was broken again, this time by the distant, frantic, and very loud whinnying of a horse somewhere down the road.

  18

  "That's not far away," said Mae. She stayed right between Ross and Brandon and tried to look past the carriage house, but could see nothing in the dark. "The horse that's yelling is out there on the road, right alongside the pasture."

  "Is that where you saw that truck and trailer go?" asked Ross.

  "Same direction, yes."

  The loud whinnying stopped and there was a lot of banging and thrashing, as though the horse was caught up in something, or was down in a trailer and trying frantically to get up.

  "It's got to be the horse I saw go by inside the trailer," said Mae.

  "Bait," said Ross. "Bring an extra horse so a stolen one is easier to load."

  "We have to go get him," cried Mae. "Listen to that noise."

  "I figured there had to be at least one more man around here somewhere," said Ross.

  "There is," Mae told him. "The two women were lying just now when you asked them if there was another accomplice."

  "The man must be out there with the truck and that horse,” Brandon suggested.

  Ross nodded.

  "I don't think so. That's a horse that's alone and panicking. We have to help it."

  Mae started for the road, but Ross caught her arm to stop her. "Cops are already on their way. We can't risk any more people tonight."

  "Either we risk it now or that animal won't survive." Mae took a breath, still looking out into the night in the direction of all the noise. "I'm going. I'm not scared anymore. I'm too mad for that. I won't let them hurt any more horses or any more of us."

  Ross looked at her, but kept silent.

  "I'm not asking anyone else to go with me," she said. "But, I'm going."

  "I'll go," said Brandon, stepping forward. "We can walk up through the trees at the edge of the pasture, right along the fence at the road."

  Ross glanced at the two of them and almost looked proud, even though he shook his head. "I'd better go, too. Can't let you two make it any worse than it already is."

  They left Stanley and Andrew guarding the three prisoners, who still sat with their hands tied at the wrists in the locked stall.

  Then Mae, Ross, and Brandon stepped through the board fence behind the carriage house and began creeping through the trees that grew just on either side of the fence line, a few yards back from the road.

  Mae wanted to run to the horse. It was clearly in trouble and still thrashing and banging in the trailer, but she realized Ross and Brandon might be right. There could be somebody there who was waiting for the other thieves to come back with Silver.

  They couldn’t give themselves away.

  At last, staying close to the big oak trees that lined the fence, the group paused. Mae peered into the darkness and saw, by the soft glow of the parking lights, the same black truck and red trailer that had driven past the farm a short time ago.

  For a moment, the thrashing stopped. The horse snorted and Mae could hear it drawing ragged breaths as fear and exhaustion began to consume it. An animal as large as a horse could find it very hard to breathe if it was down for more than a few minutes, especially when it was frightened and in an awkward position.

  They didn't have much time.

  "Were they going to bust out the boards in the fence to get Silver to the trailer?" whispered Brandon.

  "Maybe," answered Ross. "There's actually an old gate right over there. We just never use it. It's locked with a chain. If they could get it open with bolt cutters, they could take any horse out of the pasture and into their trailer."

  The horse began scrambling again.

  "We've got to get him out of there," whispered Mae. "He won't survive that way for long."

  "Wait," ordered Ross. "We don't know who else is out here. "

  The animal thrashed violently again, and then fell silent.

  Mae could not take it for another moment. Ignoring both Ross and Brandon’s protests, she told Ross to cover her and then hurried to the rear door of the trailer and got it open.

  She could hear the animal's labored breathing. He was in the front half of the stock trailer with the slatted divider bolted shut. That made sense, the bait horse would have been left in the front while Silver would be encouraged to step into the rear space. And it probably would have worked.

  She could see that the horse was, indeed, down. "Hey, buddy, what's going on?" she whispered to him. "You stay right there and we'll see what we can do."

  It didn't matter what she said. She just wanted to let the horse know that she was there and would take care of the situation. Yet all he did was thrash more at the sound of her voice.

  She saw that he would almost get to his feet, but then fall down again because the halter on his head seemed to be caught on something low. Sure enough, he'd managed to catch the heavy nylon noseband on one of the sliding bolts that held the divider in place and that was why he could not get up.

  Very carefully, for she didn’t want to go into the front compartment with a strange horse who was trapped and panicking, she managed to get her two hands through the slats in the divider and get hold of the halter's buckle. Still talking to the animal, and working as carefully as any surgeon in order to avoid setting him off again, she managed to get the buckle unfastened.

  At the sudden release of pressure, the horse threw up his head and leapt to his feet. He snorted and whirled around. He was a small red-and-white
pinto, not much bigger than Goldie, and he seemed unhurt, at least, nothing too serious.

  Mae stepped out of the trailer and started to shut the outer gate, but suddenly Ross was right there beside her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back.

  Mae saw the shadowy figure of a large man walking slowly along the side of the trailer. He had both hands together out in front of him as though holding a pistol. He seemed to be ignoring the distressed horse and focusing intently on the darkness in front of him.

  "Jake?" the man asked softly. "Is that you?"

  Ross stood up straight. "No. Drop the gun. Now."

  The figure jumped back, clearly shocked and startled. "What? Jake! What are you doing?"

  "Not Jake," Ross said. "Drop the gun. Sheriff's deputies on the way right now. Drop it."

  Mae stepped back, grabbing Brandon by the shoulder and pulling him back with her until they could get behind a couple of big trees.

  "Get out of here!" the man finally yelled. "Get out."

  Someone fired their gun. The flash briefly lit up the night and Mae's ears rang from the terrible noise.

  Just as fast, someone returned fire. She couldn’t help but cry out. The only sound she could hear was the ringing echo of the shots and, distantly, the banging and stomping of the horse in the trailer.

  Mae realized that Ross was still standing, but the other man lay flat on his back on the ground. As she and Brandon watched, the man tossed his small handgun aside.

  "Brandon," called Ross, and Brandon calmly walked over to him. "Get me another rope. I saw some on the sides of the trailer."

  "Right. Here you go." Brandon almost seemed a little giddy from all the excitement. "I should've brought an extra. We're going to run out of lead ropes if these people don't stop trying to steal horses."

  Ross tied the man's hands behind his back and then made him get up. This fourth prisoner immediately began moaning and crying out. "My arm. You shot me in my arm. I don't even know you. My truck broke down. I was waitin' for my friend to get back with help. What are you doing?"

  Ross made him walk over to the fence line and sit down. "Quiet. Sheriff's deputies on the way."

  The big man cried out again as Ross sat him down, but made no move of any kind after that except to keep looking back in the direction of the barn. He seemed to be much more afraid of what his friend Jake would do to him than about Ross or any of the rest.

  A small light, moving and blinking, came from the direction of the farm and caught Mae's eye. "Brandon," she said, still watching the light, "call your brother. I'm guessing that's him holding up a flashlight and trying to signal us."

  Brandon saw it, too. "Yeah. I guess they would have heard the shots."

  In a moment, he had Andrew on the phone. "Yeah, yeah, just the usual gunfight. He shot at Ross and Ross set him down. I think I'm getting used to it now. Okay, so call the deputies again. We need squad cars for three and ambulances for two. Hope they don't change us extra. Oh, yeah, we have another horse, too. Hope there's another stall without prisoners in it. Okay. We'll be right there."

  Brandon looked up. "Deputies and ambulances on the way. Stanley says he has another stall for the horse. Everything's fine back there."

  "Well, good," said Mae, starting to feel a little shell shocked by the events of the night. "It could have been a lot worse. And all the people and horses are safe. That's all that matters."

  "Is this horse all right?" asked Brandon, peering through the slats of the trailer.

  "I think so. We'll look him over once we can get him back to the barn and into a stall. But he's up on his feet now."

  "Do you think they stole him, too, Mom?"

  "Could be. But like Ross said, his job was most likely to lure Silver into that strange trailer in the dark. Who knows where he might have ended up after that."

  "I'll stay next to him." He walked over to the side of the trailer to talk to the animal, even reaching through the slats and offering his hand for the horse to sniff.

  "Thanks, Brandon. He needs a friend right now."

  "Sure. Hope he's okay." Brandon sat down on the side fender of the trailer and continued watching the horse.

  Mae walked over to Ross. He stood with his .45 trained on their prisoner, who had wisely decided to shut up.

  "Think he's all right?" Mae said quietly.

  "I think so. I think the bullet just grazed the arm. The paramedics will take care of him."

  "Brandon said Andrew told him that help was finally on the way."

  "Good."

  Mae stood quietly beside the tall man for a moment. "I guess I should apologize for putting everyone through this. I was afraid it was just my imagination working overtime. I should have been going by facts, not premonitions and hunches."

  "Hmm." Ross glanced out at the dark road again. "You do have to go with facts. At the same time, if there was one thing I learned in law enforcement, it was to always trust your gut. You did. And you turned out to be right. No one can complain about that."

  "I guess not. I'm just glad it wasn't any worse." Mae looked up at him. "That was some pretty fine shooting, I must say. Dropping a bad guy with a hit to the arm instead of actually killing him."

  Very slowly, Ross looked down at her. "It was a split second decision," he said. "The guy’s lucky ... but he probably shouldn’t be."

  Mae could only nod as she realized he wasn’t joking.

  With the little red-and-white horse calm for the moment and their fourth prisoner secured, Mae breathed in the cold night air and turned toward the road to watch for the emergency vehicle lights . . . and to think of how very, very fortunate she was to have sons like Brandon and Andrew, and to have a friend like retired Texas sheriff Ross Goodnight.

  19

  Late the next afternoon, Mae and Ross drove to the sheriff's outpost down the road to speak to Deputy Blackwood about everything that had happened so far on the case. Andrew and Brandon rode along with them in the backseat of Mae's big green truck.

  "I guess I didn't plan on doing this over the holidays," said Andrew, sounding a little nervous.

  "Oh, you'll get used to it if you keep coming around," said Brandon, and Mae couldn’t help but smile.

  Once at the outpost, the four of them were taken to a meeting room where Deputy Blackwood and Sheriff Josephson waited for them.

  "Thank you for coming," said Sheriff Josephson. "I heard there was a little excitement at the farm last night."

  "You might say that," said Ross.

  "Our jail is getting a little crowded," said Deputy Blackwood. "We were thinking of asking Ross if we could rent out a couple of stalls for the prisoners. It seemed to work pretty well last night."

  "I guess it worked well enough," said Mae, smiling now that it was over.

  "Seriously, though," said the sheriff. "We're just glad nothing worse happened. I want to let you know what they told us. You four are here to make your formal statements and ask any questions that you have."

  They all nodded. "Let's get started,” said Mae. "Nothing would make me happier than to forget all about this for the rest of the holidays."

  "Understandable," said Blackwood. "Apparently the story of these criminals began in a place near Johnson City, Tennessee, way out in the far eastern part of the state."

  On a dreary sub-freezing day in early November, two men worked at repairing a roof on a large horse barn in eastern Tennessee. Hammering away up there left them very cold, but their vantage point also let them get a good look at the wealthy people and their fancy animals down below.

  "Look at that," said Jake Crickson, sitting back for just a moment. "Women wearing furs and jewelry just to drive some horse around. And their husbands driving cars that cost more'n you and me will make in twenty years."

  "Yeah," said his friend and associate Tim Leonard, reaching for the hammer. "And those horses cost about as much as the cars."

  "A horse like that works for, what, half-hour a day? If you can call it work?" Jake looked down on th
e one trotting past with its little cart, and scowled. "While we put in ten hours in the freezing cold and boiling heat on these rooftops, and don’t get paid half of what it costs to keep just one of those horses every month."

  "Sure," said Tim. "But what can a guy do?"

  "Maybe more than just gripe," answered Jake. "I got a cousin up in Ohio that makes some nice money off of horses. All kinds of horses. Maybe it's about time we did, too."

  In the late-night blackness of a Tennessee country road, an old black pickup truck pulling a battered red stock trailer moved slowly toward the distant lights of the fairgrounds.

  "I told you, Tim," said Jake. "Can't steal one out of that show stable. They got dogs, guns, cameras, and watchmen. But they took a half-dozen horses to this little show yesterday morning. I'm tellin' ya, this will be a whole lot easier."

  "That's right," said Lenny Crickson, Jake's cousin. "The fairground only has a wire fence around it. They check the horse's papers at the gate, but we're not going through the gate."

  Jake snickered. "If you got wire cutters, you don't need no papers. And no gate."

  They parked the truck in a dark spot on the backside of the old fairground’s horse racing track. Tim remained behind the wheel while Lenny and Jake slipped through the fence, made their way past the track, and walked to the rows of old wooden stabling.

  From inside the trailer hooked to the truck came a long, loud whinny.

  "Shut up, Spot," Tim muttered at the horse, though Lenny had said not to worry about it. There were horses all around at the small farms along the road and whinnying could have come from any of them.

  In an amazingly short time, Jake and Lenny came back leading a huge grey horse wearing a thick warm blanket. His coat's a lot nicer than mine, thought Tim.

  They cut the wire fence and led him through. It only took a moment to convince the horse to walk into the trailer, the little red-and-white one already back there helped with that, and then they were off again into the night.