Cheatgrass

by Bart Paul

  I went out to the sidewalk into the early afternoon wind. I took my jacket out of my truck and crossed Main Street. I passed the General Store and was about to head up the side street to the sheriff’s when I turned for a last look at Hoyt’s shack, wondering how a genial doofus like him ever got the water acquisition job in the first place. A block down from his building I saw a sheriff’s SUV parked next to the Mansion House Hotel. It was Sarah, watching Main Street for speeders and cell phone desperadoes. I waved until she saw me, then kept on to the sheriff’s. Parked outside the main entrance was a new Impala. Taped in the corner of the windshield was a card with a logo and the words Federal Bureau of Investigation—Government Owned Vehicle, just as plain as you please.

  When I got inside the building, I could see Mitch sitting in his office talking to a guy in a sport coat and jeans. I stopped about six feet from his door.

  “So Mitch, how’s the Dave Cathcart thing going?”

  “It’s going real good, Tommy,” Mitch said. “Now, why don’t you run along and leave us to it?”

  “I will when you get Sarah in here. It’s her father, for chrissakes.”

  “Don’t start,” Mitch said. “I keep Sarah in the loop, so—”

  The guy got up. “You must be Smith,” he said.

  I told him I was.

  “Pleased to meet you, Sergeant.”

  We shook, and he said he was agent Aaron Fuchs from the FBI’s South Lake Tahoe office there to advise. He said he’d heard of me but didn’t say how.

  “You’re the Marine sniper, right?” he said.

  “Army.”

  “Anyway,” he said, “your reputation precedes you. Want to sit in?”

  Mitch didn’t look happy anymore. The agent started to fill me in on what new information they had about the disappearance, which was precious little. There had been a lot of calls claiming Dave Cathcart sightings that turned up dry. His red Chevy pickup had been seen from Fallon to Placerville. Folks had come to the Tahoe office with theories and guesses that had just wasted their time, but he said they had to follow up every one. He did say that they’d located a joint bank account that Dave had opened with Kip. Each guy had put in a grand, but there weren’t any withdrawals, and he asked me as a family friend if I knew why Kip and not Sarah was on the account. All of this really frosted Mitch.

  “Before I forget,” Fuchs said, “did you ever find his cell phone?”

  Mitch shook his head. “My guys combed that place,” he said, “but even just the barnyard is huge. I’m sure Sarah had Kip and Tommy workin’ together, looking under every rock.”

  “From what we could tell, his phone battery is dead,” Fuchs said. He was fiddling with an iPad. “So we may never find it.” He looked at Mitch across the desk. “And you got the message off his landline, right?”

  Mitch looked flummoxed. “No.”

  Fuchs tapped the screen and set the iPad on the desk. It was Dave’s voice, but it sounded frail and drifty:

  “… Sarah? Pick up if you can. I went and told him. Said I just couldn’t do it—couldn’t sell the water. It’d kill the place. It might die anyhow with the goddamn never-ending drought and nothing but cheatgrass and ground hornets like a goddamn plague—Hold on. Maybe this is him on the other line …”

  “That was the night before he disappeared,” Fuchs said.

  There was a long busy signal, then silence. The three of us just looked at each other.

  “He’d changed since you saw him last, Tommy,” Sarah said. She was standing just outside the door. “He must have made that call to the house right after I left for work that night. Nice of you to wait for me, boss.”

  “Swear to god, Sarah,” Mitch said. “I just heard that for the first time myself.”

  “I won’t even ask why that is,” she said.

  “Hell, I don’t even think about landlines anymore,” Mitch said. “Who uses ’em?”

  “So who’s the ‘him’ Dave’s talking about?”

  “What do you mean, Tommy?” Sarah said.

  “Who was it he told?”

  “Hoyt?” she said.

  “Or Kip? Or some third person we don’t know about?”

  “Now don’t go making this more complicated than it is, Tommy,” Mitch said.

  “It’s a real good question, Sheriff,” Fuchs said. “We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg here, which is common with these kinds of cases.”

  He reached out and played Dave’s message again. Sarah looked sad and started walking down the hall towards the restrooms. Fuchs took the iPad and got up to leave. He told Mitch he’d be in email contact the next morning after he got more information from their Sacramento office. Then he and I shook again.

  “I’m sure the Isringhausens are glad to have you around,” he said.

  Mitch snorted at that. We both watched agent Fuchs go, then Mitch looked up like he was surprised I was still there.

  “Okay,” Mitch said. “You wanna know what I think?”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “I don’t think Dave just got demented all of a sudden and wandered off,” Mitch said. “And since we got no ransom demand I think we can rule out kidnapping. You heard the guy—tip of the iceberg. I think the old boy just took a timeout. Just bailed on the whole deal. You heard his voice. He sounds tired. Wore out. Too many decisions. Too many people pulling him in too many directions and too darned old to deal with it.” He waved his arm around the room, then leaned toward me. “And I think old Dave needed a breather from his daughter’s sticky domestic situation. A situation all bollixed up ’cause of the torch that girl still carries for you.”

  “Bullshit. Sarah’s as honorable as they come.”

  “Yeah, but you’re here, aren’t you?” he said. “Big as life, sticking your nose in Cathcart business even as we speak. I just got a call from Hoyt Berglund’s office girl. The kid says you were just there poking that nose of yours in the darned water deal, and was she even supposed to talk to you about it? And did she tell you too much already? So that’s it. I think Dave just walked away from it all. From the whole mess, you included, hotshot. I bet the Feds find a secret bank account in Vegas or some dang thing. He’s probably down there now with a drink in his hand and a keno girl on his lap.”

  “You think he’d walk away from his place? From his daughter?”

  “Yeah,” Mitch said. “That’s exactly what I think. If her love life’s about to turn into a clown show now that you’re back, why not?”

  “I don’t mean to sound critical here—Sheriff—but Dave’s life, or any of the family ranchers around here—it ain’t like running a Starbucks. Dave’s dad came into Shoshone Valley in the Depression. Sam Cathcart was a kid mustanger and bronc rider from down around Bishop whose old man had been a muleskinner on the aqueduct. There was damn few decent cowboying jobs then, so mustanging was one way not to starve, but it wasn’t pretty. They’d steal empty five gallon lard cans from behind cafés and cut an X in the tin, then bury the cans real shallow in a brush trap they’d built leading to a waterhole. They’d run some scrawny band into that trap, and if a horse stuck a foot in that can, they couldn’t pull it out so they were easy to rope. It didn’t matter how cut up they got—they were going straight to the killers anyhow for dog food. Sam was so poor he ran mustangs on a borrowed horse and saddle. When he finally saw one worth keeping, he roped it out in the open, snubbed it up tight and ran it across that rocky desert behind his horse till it about dropped. After he gentled it, he rode that broomtail bareback all the way up into this country ’cause Shoshone Valley was where he wanted to settle. Sam lived in that stone barn out at Hoffstatler’s—lived on soda crackers and beans when he could get ’em and starved when he couldn’t and saved every goddamn penny. When he saved enough, Sam bought the place Dave has now. If you think Dave could turn his back on all that his old man did to build that ranch, you’re nuts.”

  “Whoa, big fellah.” It was Kip. He must have walked in during my little rampage. “You
been holding that in for a while. Shit, dude, say what you really think.”

  I had to laugh at that.

  “Where’s my bride?” he said.

  “In the ladies,” Mitch said.

  “So, we still on for tomorrow?” Kip said. “Shoot some targets or tartlets—whatever you got?”

  “Midmorning? Sarah asked me to take a ride through those heifers of Dave’s right after breakfast. Might have to tag a couple.”

  “Let me know,” Kip said. “No sweat. I got an appointment here tomorrow to talk to a lady at the courthouse about canceling a colt gentling clinic Dave and I were putting on at the county arena. And thanks for helping Sarah with the cattle. Definitely not in my wheelhouse.”

  “Hey, Kip,” Mitch said. “You agree Dave mighta just wandered off, right?” He was fiddling with his desk computer.

  “Yeah, like a stroke or something,” Kip said. “I don’t think we can discount it.”

  “Looky here on the computer, Kip,” Mitch said. He looked up when he heard Sarah walking toward us in the hallway.

  Kip walked around the desk to look at the screen. “I heard of him. Does Sarah know?”

  “Know what?” Sarah said.

  Kip was still staring at the screen. He didn’t see her squeeze my hand when she walked by, or see how surprised I was when she did.

  “Say’s here they found Randy Ragazino dead out by Frémont Lake, on the Rez,” Mitch said.

  “Isn’t that a little out of your jurisdiction? Wrong state and all?”

  “Copper County’s just giving us a heads-up, Tommy,” Mitch said. “Ragazino’s been in all kinds of drug dealing and low-end crap for years with your pal Jedediah Boone.”

  “They’re not pals,” Sarah said, “and you know it.”

  “Says here Randy died from a massive blow to the face,” Mitch said. “Smashed cartilage, brain trauma and stuff. Copper County says Boone is definitely a party of interest.” He looked at me just insincere as hell and smiled. “If anybody could take you out with one punch to the face it’d be your pal Jedediah.”

  “My god, you know not to discuss crime-scene details, Mitch,” Sarah said.

  Kip started staring down at his phone like he hadn’t heard much of what Mitch said anyway.

  “Do you still want to go get a late lunch?” Sarah said.

  “Can’t, doll,” Kip said. He looked up from his phone. “Gotta zip back up to Carson. I just got rescheduled.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry—don’t wait up.”

  Sometimes Sarah looked like every man on the planet just pissed the hell out of her.

  Chapter Eight

  The wind was still the next morning and it was overcast like a spring storm coming. I had breakfast early with Mom and Burt, then told them I’d be out for most of the day. Eddie, the young Marine, stopped by like clockwork to fetch Burt. The kid and I talked a bit while Burt got his stuff squared away. Young as he was, Eddie was in charge of the operation where Burt taught packing. He said he was from Spink County, South Dakota, and had never been deployed to anyplace where folks were trying to kill him and never done any packing before he joined the Corps, but he’d taken to the life and to the country. I asked him if I could come up to the base and check out their setup some day before I headed east.

  “Folks around here always joke about government mules, so I’d actually like to see some that weren’t just in a Fourth of July parade.”

  “No problem, sir,” he said. “Just let Burt or me know, and we’ll give you the tour.”

  Damn Marines were always polite as hell. I recalled I hadn’t got a reply from my Pendleton guy on Kip yet. I was probably being too suspicious because it was him not me behind that bedroom door with Sarah. Burt kissed Mom good-bye and he and Eddie hit the road. I stood with my arm around Mom’s shoulders at the front window of the apartment as she watched them cross the asphalt to where Eddie had left his Tundra parked out by the Dumpsters and big propane tank. She seemed pretty damned content for the first time in a long while.

  I drove into Cathcart’s yard with my spurs on by seven. Kip’s big Ram and Sarah’s Silverado were both gone. She’d told me she had the early shift, and I figured that Kip hadn’t come home yet from his business in Carson City though it was barely an hour’s drive north. Sarah had corralled and thrown hay to the saddle horses for me before she left, and told me where to find her cantlebag with the tagging stuff in the saddle room.

  I caught her dad’s roan ropehorse, saddled him and grained him in the barn. Then I snooped around a bit. There was no movement at the ironpumpers’ little trailer, but their old Blazer was parked behind it. I walked close and stopped to listen, then banged on the door. The sun broke through as I was thinking of some bullshit excuse to be bothering them, but I didn’t really care what they thought. It was past seven and high time these two honyockers got started on whatever foolishness it was they did all day. When no one answered I went inside and looked around, but just for a second since it stunk so bad. Except for open pill bottles that looked to be steroids, Bowie knives, a machete, some bodybuilding magazines that looked kinda suspect, lots of weed, an old AK-47, and some straight porn, there wasn’t much out of the ordinary. I left the door open when I went back outside so they’d know they’d had company.

  I rode the roan out through the heifers. Sarah had given me the ear tag number of one with a prolapsed uterus she’d brought in to doctor a few days before and wanted me to check on. I found one bagged-up about to calve that I’d look at again later in the day. Off by herself at the edge of the willows I saw a brockle-faced heifer that had calved a few hours earlier. She hadn’t quite cleaned out yet but you could see she’d been sucked. The calf looked healthy and was lying in the sun and stood up when I rode closer. I roped the calf and stepped down. The roan kept the rope taut as I shooed the cow off, flanked the calf and tagged him. I let him up and watched him run off to his mama, thinking of all the times I’d done this with Dad, and thinking of all the times since he died that I’d gone halfway around the world to not think about any of this at all. I coiled my loop, put the tagger back in the bag, reset my saddle and stepped aboard. I circled through another half dozen until I found the prolapsed heifer, and to me she looked good as new. Sarah had, as usual, done a fine job minding her calvers. I always thought she would make a rancher and was wasting her talent as a deputy, but then she and I never listened to the best things that each of us told the other.

  I headed north toward the fence that separated this field from Hoffstatler’s. In the distance I could see a truck that belonged to Fish and Wildlife. I got closer and could see Dad’s old water buddy, Hoyt Berglund. He was standing with his fists on his hipbones staring down at a dry ditch. He looked up at me like we’d been in the middle of a conversation—like he’d just asked me a question and was waiting for the answer.

  “Hey, Hoyt. Been a while.”

  “Tommy Smith,” he said. “Tell me, how does a guy lose an entire crick? I seem to have misplaced the sonofabitch.”

  He reached up and we shook. I got down from the horse and he showed me the bone-dry, ten-foot-wide watercourse. We walked up it together, poking the gravel with our boot toes. Then I hobbled the roan and we walked over to the truck and sat on the tailgate. He had a four-wheeler strapped down in the truckbed. He asked how my mom was and if I was done with the Army and home for good. Then he asked what was going on with the Dave Cathcart investigation, and I said damn little. He handed me a water out of his cooler and offered to share some beef jerky and trailmix. It was only nine in the morning so I passed, but he dug right in.

  “Your dad ever tell you about the time we caught Hornberg diverting Power Line Crick back in the seventies in that bad drought?”

  I said I’d heard the story a lot, but Hoyt told it to me again anyway.

  “Folks just go crazy over water,” he said at the end of his story. “Makes ’em nuts. Sleepless nights. They think they never have enough, even with the best prior rights. And in a bad year
everybody is watching their neighbor, suspicious as hell.” He took another bite of jerky and talked while he chewed. “Can’t blame ’em. If somebody diverts your water even for an hour, it’s gone for good. Gone-for-good. You can stop ’em, but you’ll never get that water back.”

  “Like that saying that you never step in the same river twice.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  He started back in on his dry creekbed. It was from a drainage just east of us up in the Monte Cristos called False Spring Canyon, and now no water was flowing down.

  “When I negotiated the rights with the Hoffstatler family,” he said, “it had a small flow. It fluctuated, but it was steady enough to monitor.”

  “Is it the drought?”

  He shook his head. “That would reduce the flow, but it’s spring fed even in dry years. It’s unpredictable, but despite the name, it don’t just disappear.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Tommy,” he said. He turned and looked back at the canyon mouth. “I got to find the problem or the whole project looks sorta foolish.”

  He’d taken to wearing floppy fisherman’s hats and mom-jeans since I’d last seen him, and his face was pink and scabby and his teeth long and yellow just like I remembered, so I let that comment go.

  “What about Dave’s rights? Where does that stand?”

  “He told me he’d finally decided against selling,” Hoyt said. “Told me he wanted to keep the place a working ranch, which I sure understand.”

  “He tell you by phone or in person?”

  “He told me in person.”

  “You remember when?”

  “It was maybe the day before he came up missing, or the day before that,” he said. “Funny thing about that, though. A couple hours after we talked he sent me some texts saying he’d changed his mind. Had a ‘change of heart,’ he said. Those were his words. I thought he was gettin’ loopy. Wanted to know how quick he could get the money, so I said soon as I get the paperwork we can start the ball.” Hoyt studied on this a minute. “He wouldn’t be sending me them texts if he was dead, would he? Unless it’s me getting loopy. If I get that way, you just shoot me, okay.”