Down Range

by Taylor Moore

  “Who?” Garrett protested. “Grace and Bridger?”

  Butch shook his head. “Don’t see Grace much. She’s still down in Midland with that banker.” He said the word banker like a regular person might say pedophile. “Your brother comes out though.”

  “Bridger!” Garrett howled. “When’s the last time he’s stepped foot inside this place?”

  Butch abruptly changed the subject. “Expect you’ll be wanting to get over and say hello, given how you pissed him off last time you were here.” Before Garrett could counter, Butch continued. “Plus, you’ll want to see your nieces before they get married, move off, and start having kids of their own.”

  “The twins are in middle school, Daddy.”

  A grunt. “Well, with the frequency you visit, I’d shake a leg.” Butch paused, seeming to ponder something. “Think they’re cheering at a basketball game tonight. If you’re interested?”

  “Cheerleaders, huh?” Garrett remembered their mom cheering back in high school, but she was better known for her accomplishments as a barrel racer. Bridger first met her on the rodeo circuit and things blossomed from there.

  “Sophie and Chloe as good as riders as Cassidy was back in the day?”

  “Oh yeah, they’re hell on wheels.” Butch’s pride in his granddaughters was more than apparent. “Going to be pretty like her too, I expect.”

  Cassidy Kohl defined Texas beauty. She had long blond hair and deep brown eyes that complemented a year-round tan. Her body was lithe and lean from riding and hard work on her family’s farm near Shamrock.

  Butch chuckled a little. “Bridge said he’s got his shotgun oiled up and ready. Guess the boys are already taking notice.”

  “Well, that’s living proof God’s got a sense of humor. If anybody deserves grief, it’s him. I know he’s made a few quick getaways with birdshot nipping at his ass.”

  Thinking back on good times made Garrett eager to see Bridger and his family, but it wasn’t going to be easy. The last time they’d spoken they’d gotten into a huge argument. There was no way he was going to ask directly, but Garrett thought he might do a little fishing—see if his brother was still mad at him. “Other than getting his rightful comeuppance, he’s doing okay?”

  “He’s all right.” A beat passed and Butch lost his grin. “Good as can be, I reckon.”

  Garrett knew his dad well enough to know the old man was holding back. And Butch Kohl never held back. “Well, what is it?”

  “What is what?”

  “Don’t hold out on me now, Daddy. Bridger still pissed off or something?”

  Butch shook it off. “Nah, it’s not that.”

  That was good to hear, but it only meant something else was going on. Garrett always suspected Bridger would do something to screw up his marriage. Perfect was never good enough. He always wanted more. “What is it then? Something to do with Cassidy?”

  “No, he’s been good to her as far as I can tell. Truth be told, I don’t know what’s wrong. Last time I saw him he just seemed real nervous. Said he had some problems.”

  “What the hell kind of problems does he have? Too much money? Wife too hot?”

  This was classic Bridger. When life was too good, he went looking for trouble. In life and love, big brother shined like the harvest moon. He was the champion quarterback and rodeo star. But Bridger had a wild streak, a temper, and a tendency to break rules without getting caught.

  Growing impatient with his dad’s reluctance to spill the beans, Garrett leaned forward and locked eyes with him. “Dammit, Daddy, you gonna tell me what’s going on or am I going to have to sit here and guess all night?”

  “I don’t know,” Butch bristled. Simmering a moment, he looked Garrett in the eye. “He just seems rattled. That’s all.”

  Garrett couldn’t ever recall seeing Bridger rattled. Other than running low on beer money and a couple of close calls in the baby department, his brother guzzled life from a silver chalice. Butch could pshaw the idea of his brother stepping out all day long, but if money were on the odds, Bridger was two-timing Cassidy and in danger of getting caught.

  “All right,” Garrett grumbled. “You want me to press him a little, see what I can find out?”

  Butch didn’t answer, but that meant yes. His only two responses were silence and tantrum.

  It had been Garrett’s intention to work up to reconciliation with Bridger over the course of a few days. But Butch seemed anxious, and that wasn’t normal. The old man’s cure for everything from skinned knees to aneurysms was rub some dirt on it. If he was worried, there was a reason.

  Garrett rose from the couch with a groan. He’d just gotten comfortable and didn’t fancy the notion of going back out into the cold, but if Bridger was really in some sort of trouble, then he’d better get to the bottom of it. He walked to the dining room table and grabbed the well-worn silverbelly cowboy hat he’d retrieved from his room.

  A quick glance at his watch and Garrett saw it was just after four. Bridger would still be at his office. He thumbed over at Asadi, who had gotten up from the couch a few minutes earlier and was staring out the window. Fitting the hat to his head, he turned back. “I’ll need to keep him out of sight while I’m here.”

  Butch was the only one outside Garrett’s chain of command who knew he was DEA. And to the old man’s credit, he had been good about keeping it to himself and not asking questions. Of course, it could’ve been because he just didn’t care. Either way, Garrett could depend on his discretion.

  Garrett lowered his voice, an implied way of saying this is between you and me. “Think you can watch Asadi while I’m out?”

  A look of panic spread across Butch’s face. “Well . . . uh . . .”

  Garrett didn’t wait for the forthcoming pathetic excuse. “Won’t be more than a couple of hours, I expect.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with a kid? He don’t even speak good English.”

  Garrett decided not to touch that one. “Well, teach him something. Hell. You’re always talking about how much you know about everything. Here’s your chance to prove it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Garrett shrugged, loving every minute of his dad’s state of panic. “You’ll figure it out.”

  By the look on his face, you’d have thought Butch was trapped in the house with a Bengal tiger. “But the kid don’t know nothing. Probably piss in the wind if I ain’t watching him good.”

  The old son of a bitch had walked into a trap.

  “Well, Daddy, one thing we got out here is lots of wind. And he just finished a big bottle of Mountain Dew.” He nodded in Asadi’s direction. “Sounds like you got your whole afternoon cut out for you.”

  His dad started to argue but Garrett interrupted. “And see if he wants something to eat. I got him a burrito at the Flying Bandit earlier, but he hasn’t had anything since.”

  Butch looked disgusted. “You feed him that crap, he’ll be wanting the commode before he wants another meal.”

  “He liked it,” Garrett argued.

  “Nobody likes Bandit burritos unless they’re drunk off their ass or in a real big hurry. Which one was he?”

  Garrett was already getting roped into one of his dad’s stupid arguments. Before continuing down that road, he communicated the best he could to Asadi that he’d be back in a couple of hours. It involved a lot of pointing to the numbers on his watch, but as usual, the boy seemed to get the message.

  Convinced he understood, Garrett grabbed his coat from the table and turned back to his dad. The old man was cussing at the screen, yelling something about estate taxes and government waste.

  Garrett chuckled to himself thinking about the ride over from Afghanistan on the seventy-five-million-dollar Gulfstream. It was one secret he would have love to let slip, just to rile the old man. But rather than provoke a fight, Garrett took off out the front door and climbed into his snow-covered pickup. He was feeling more than a little squeamish about leaving Asadi the
re with his dad, but at the moment meeting Bridger took priority.

  Despite past differences, repairing their relationship was something Garrett had to do. And the reason for this was Butch Kohl. He was turning into a lonely old curmudgeon, and even worse, letting the ranch fall to ruin.

  Blood and soil mattered a hell of a lot more than Garrett had thought they did. And he was going to see to it that he took care of both.

  7

  After texting his brother, Garrett agreed to meet at the Cattle Exchange for dinner. He’d hoped to keep a lower profile, but a crowded public venue had its plusses. And keeping Bridger’s notorious temper in check was a big one. With a little time to kill, Garrett tooled down the backstreets of Canadian and hung a right on Main by the old Women’s Christian Temperance Union turned public library.

  At one of the highest points in town, Garrett tapped the brakes, bringing his truck to a crawl, which wasn’t an issue on a street with no traffic. He digested the familiar sights in slow motion. Returning home was like settling into a hot bath—only tolerable if dipped into an inch at a time.

  Passing the redbrick Hemphill County courthouse, he gazed between the two-story skyline of the sleepy downtown and took in the view. There were a couple of banks, a coffee shop, and a single-screen movie theater, all within a minute’s walk of each other. A few antiques shops and boutique clothing stores had popped up, but other than that not much had changed.

  His eyes finally rested on the snowy horizon that glimmered orange in the dipping sun. With its ice-crusted foothills and rolling prairie, the vast emptiness beneath a roofless sky gave the impression of a frontier that had no end.

  As a kid, Garrett had sworn he could see all the way to New Mexico, but it was probably only about ten miles. Even so, it was glaringly obvious why Canadian was called the “oasis of the high plains.” As the crow flies, it was nearly three hundred miles west of Tulsa with not a damn thing in between—and three hundred more to Santa Fe with a helluva lot less.

  No one passed through it. If you got there you were going there. And nobody did that.

  Although tranquil and isolated, Canadian was a town with secrets. Some dark. Some deep. And some the subject of titillating scandal. Of course, scandals ranged from offenses as trifling as showing too much cleavage at the church picnic to as egregious as knocking up the preacher’s daughter and running off with the collection plate.

  But every so often, there was a stark reminder that people are people no matter where you go. And this small town had its scattered bones and shallow graves to prove it.

  On the right-hand side of Main was Bridger’s law office, a one-man operation decorated in an Old West motif. Garrett always thought the place looked more like the set of Gunsmoke than anywhere you’d do legitimate business, but he kept that to himself. With the lights on and people milling around inside, it was obvious that whatever client meeting his brother was obliged to attend that afternoon was still in full swing.

  With no signs of it wrapping up early, Garrett turned right onto Second Street and to the old Canadian River Wagon Bridge on the outskirts of town. He veered left off the highway, taking a side road to the riverbed where he parked at one end. There were a couple of pickups by the historical marker—one a silver Ford dually, fresh off the line, the other a white fleet truck with a Renegade Oil & Gas Services logo emblazoned on the side. It was nearly five o’clock, which meant a couple of buddies had probably kicked off early and were out on the footbridge knocking back a couple of cold ones.

  With just a sliver of lingering sunlight, Garrett jumped out of his pickup and took in the scene before him. In the near darkness, yellow lights hanging from the beams of the giant iron framework cast spoked shadows on the walkway like ribs off a giant skeleton. As kids, he and Bridger would dare each other farther and farther out until a rustle from beneath sent them sprinting back to safety.

  Of course, it wasn’t hard to spook a couple of kids, but the idea of ghosts beneath their feet wasn’t entirely unfounded. More than a few men lost their lives building that bridge, especially the ones lowered into the concrete pillars to reinforce the foundation. Many went in, but not all came out, and their bodies still lay entombed inside.

  Garrett had hoped for a tranquil return, but raucous voices coming from the silhouettes ahead were already fouling up the winter air. Loud as they were, it was clear whoever was out there was knocking back more than a couple. In fact, there was a good chance these guys were three sheets to the wind.

  Wanting to avoid any drunks, particularly ones who might be old acquaintances, Garrett turned to head back. But a cry for help stopped him dead in his tracks. He instinctively reached for his Glock only to find a bare hip. He’d yet to retrieve his pistol, still stuffed inside the Eberlestock pack on the truck floorboard.

  As he stood calculating how long it would take to get there and back, a second shriek pierced the night, and he sprinted toward the scuffle wondering what the hell he’d do if he came face-to-face with a loaded gun. The closer he got, the clearer it became that weapon or not, the aggressor in this fight owned Garrett in size by at least three inches and a good forty pounds.

  Careful to keep a healthy distance, Garrett slowed his pace. With all the authority he could muster, he issued the command, “Let him go! Now!”

  Giving little regard to the warning, the aggressor glanced casually over his right shoulder, then turned back to the skinny guy whose neck was within the grip of his left hand. With an easy but powerful shove, he sent his victim tumbling backward onto the planks.

  It wasn’t until Garrett moved within a few feet that he recognized the notorious ne’er-do-well before him. Bo Clevenger turned and lumbered forward until the shaved head sitting atop his bull neck came into the full glow of the light above.

  “I’ll be damned. Garrett Kohl. That you, ol’ friend?”

  Ol’ Friend. They’d never been friends. Not by a long shot.

  Bo had been an all-state middle linebacker in high school, and probably good enough to play college ball. But after a possession with intent to distribute charge, no recruiter would touch him. He turned to bulldogging and had done fairly well on the rodeo circuit, but apparently jumping from a horse full speed atop a four-hundred-pound steer and wrestling it to the ground never satisfied Bo’s demons. He was always chasing another. And when he broke the necks of three animals in consecutive competitions his infamy grew.

  Whether or not the killings were intentional, nobody knew for sure. What wasn’t disputed was that Bo was sadistic and mean. Always had been.

  Drawing in a frigid breath, Garrett locked eyes with his ol’ friend. “What the hell’s going on out here, Bo?” When he got no answer, he turned his attention to the one who was still lying on his back. “You all right?”

  The guy was clearly scared out of his mind, and Garrett couldn’t blame him.

  Bo laughed. “Ah hell, this ain’t nothing but a little mix-up.” He turned back to the guy on the ground. “But we got it all straightened out. Didn’t we, Smitty?”

  Unlike Bo, who wore the same menacing smile he always had, the guy on the ground looked downright sick. Other than a few vigorous nods he didn’t move a muscle.

  Garrett peered around Bo and locked eyes with Smitty, whoever he was. “Why don’t you go on and get out of here then.”

  Scrambling to his feet, Smitty stuffed a crumpled paper bag into the inside of his coat and gave them a wide berth as he darted by. It didn’t take long for the tap of Smitty’s work boots to give way to the whistling breeze.

  Not wanting to take his eye off Bo, Garrett kept his focus straight ahead. If he had to guess, this was a dope deal gone bad. Of course, he wasn’t about to blow his cover over a low-level hustler and a couple ounces of crank. There were bigger fish to fry out there than these two.

  Bo breezed on with the conversation as if nothing had happened. “So, what brings you back to town, Kohl? Last I heard you was out on a rig. Making them big bucks in the sandbox.” />
  Since Bo had moved on, Garrett figured he would too. “Bigger than they’re paying around here these days.”

  “Depends on how you fit into the sector.”

  Bo was referring to the role you play in the energy sector. Upstream was the extraction of crude oil and natural gas, and downstream was refining them into something usable. Midstream was the transfer of raw production, usually by pipeline or trucking. Even when prices were down, there was always a way to make money.

  Garrett suspected he already knew the answer but asked anyhow. “And where do you fit these days?”

  Amused by what appeared to be his own inside joke, Bo’s smile grew wider. “I just get things where they need to go.”

  Before he could dig, Bo asked, “You seen Tony yet?”

  It wasn’t surprising Bo asked about Deputy Tony Sanchez, Garrett’s best friend since childhood. They’d practically been joined at the hip since kindergarten and didn’t part ways until Garrett joined the army and Sanchez the marines. They hadn’t spoken in a while, which was entirely on Garrett. It was yet another fence to mend while he was home.

  When Garrett didn’t answer, Bo gave a slight tilt of the head as if Sanchez was right behind him. “He told me you’d done forsaken us all for greener pastures.”

  If Bo wanted to be cagey, Garrett would return the favor. “Nah, I haven’t forsaken anybody, Bo. Just been on a big bear. That’s all.”

  “Big bear, huh?” Bo shook off the answer. “This hitch ain’t lasted no couple months. You’ve been gone for years.”

  Garrett shrugged. “Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.”

  “Or maybe you been hiding from something?”

  Given his DEA cover, Garrett maintained a heightened sense of awareness. And alarm bells rang loud when talking to someone in the drug game. “What would I be hiding from?”

  “The truth.”

  Garrett’s pulse quickened. “And what’s that?”

  “Bad blood between you and your brother.”

  Family feuds were some of the best fodder for gossip in small towns. No doubt, his blowout with Bridger had been big news. But why it would concern Bo was anybody’s guess.