The interior of the stable smelled of manure and trapped heat. Dacy was bent over next to the hindquarters of a copper-red horse, applying some sort of sticky brown substance to the animal’s right leg just above the hoof. When she heard his footfalls on the rough floor she glanced around briefly, then resumed her work on the sorrel’s leg. She didn’t seem any more surprised to see him than Lonnie had been.
He watched her, not speaking. She had a sure, gentle touch, and when she murmured soothingly to the horse, it pricked up its ears and tossed its head as if it understood the words. Maybe it did, he thought. Some people had that kind of rapport with animals.
Dacy straightened finally, put the cap back on the bottle of brown gum, and then pretended to notice him for the first time. “Well, well, look who’s here,” she said. The sarcasm was mild and without rancor. “How long has it been, Jim? A whole twenty-four hours?”
“I have a good reason for coming back.”
“Don’t you always? Keep this up and folks’ll think you’re looking to move in permanently.”
“I am,” he said, “but not permanently.”
“Now what does that—” She broke off, her eyes narrowing into a squint. The light in the stable was thin and dusty; she’d only just noticed the bandage. “What happened to you?”
“Some trouble last night.”
“What kind of trouble?”
He told her about it, tersely. She didn’t interrupt and she showed no reaction. When he was done she shook her head, but not as if she disbelieved him; it was more an expression of disgust and anger.
“That’s a hell of a thing to do to somebody,” she said. “Diamondbacks and sidewinders are damned poisonous critters.”
“Not as poisonous as some people.”
“You got that right. Who you think was behind it?”
“I don’t know. Is John T. capable of a trick like that?”
“With the right reason.”
“The right reason in this case is guilt. I’m sure of it, Dacy. The only person with a reason to want me hurt or dead is the real murderer of Anna’s family.”
Her mouth quirked sardonically, but she didn’t argue with him. She said, “Two men out there at Mackey’s. Hirelings, you reckon?”
“Either that, or the guilty man and a friend. Joe Hanratty and Tom Spears, for instance.”
“Why them?”
He told her about his run-in with the two cowhands. “The pickup they were using was a green Ford. Spears’s truck? He was driving.”
“Yeah. But Joe drives a Blazer, not a white pickup with a busted antenna. I wish I could tell you who belongs to that truck but I can’t. Lot of white pickups in this county.” She paused. “John T., Hanratty, Spears—they can all be hardasses. But cold-blooded killers? I don’t see it.”
“You saw it in Anna. You still do.”
No response. Dacy withdrew a cigarette from the pack in her shirt pocket, put it between her lips. Almost immediately she yanked it away and crumbled paper and tobacco between her fingers. “Fucking cancer sticks,” she said.
Messenger said, “People snap sometimes—we both know that. You can’t tell what somebody might do if he’s pushed far enough.”
“That goes for my sister, too.”
“Yes, but the point is, it goes for everybody. I don’t even know my own limits. Do you know yours?”
“Up to a point. After that … maybe not.”
“Dacy, isn’t there any doubt in your mind about Anna’s guilt? Even a shred?”
“Sure, a shred. You think I want to believe she killed my niece? But I tore myself up denying it at first, and I’m not going through all that again without proof. Show me some proof, Jim, any kind. Then I’ll fight like hell to clear her name.”
“I can’t find proof without help, your help. Give it to me and in exchange I’ll help you, if you’re willing to take a chance.”
“What’re you talking about? Chance on what?”
“Having me around for a while. Giving me a job.”
Dacy stared at him the way Espinosa had last night. “A job? Doing what?”
“Whatever Jaime Orozco used to do here. Whatever you want me to do—chores, scut work, anything.”
“I can’t afford a hired hand—”
“You don’t have to pay me,” Messenger said. “I’ll work for room and board. Sleep in the trailer outside; I’ve had enough of that motel in town.”
“You’re serious,” she said, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“And just how am I supposed to help you?”
“Not only me—you and Lonnie, too, if I’m right about Anna. You know the people involved, things about them I couldn’t find out on my own. If we put our heads together, there’s a chance we could come up with some fact or angle that’s been overlooked. That’s one possibility. Another is that my moving in here might force the real murderer’s hand.”
“Force it how?”
“It’s bound to shake him up, because it says I can’t be frightened off, I’m determined to settle in and keep digging for the truth. If he’s worried enough he might just make a mistake, do something desperate.”
“Like trying to kill you, is that it? You want to set yourself up as a target.”
“Not exactly. I’m not going to fall for any more tricks and I won’t get into a position where I can be caught unawares.”
“Famous last words.” Then she said, “But you’d be all right as long as you were on my land. Nobody’d dare come after you here.”
“Are you sure? The one reservation I have is that my moving in might put you and Lonnie in danger.”
“Shit, that’s not a worry. I know how to take care of myself and my son. You’ve seen what I can do with a rifle, Jim. Lonnie’s an even better shot than I am.” Her gaze now was speculative. “You really think this could lead where you want it to—prove somebody else killed Dave and Tess? I mean prove it.”
“I think it’s the only way either of us is likely to have a chance of proving it. All I’m asking for is ten days. What’s left of my vacation. If something hasn’t broken by then, I’ll go back to San Francisco and you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
“Ten days, huh? You ever work on a ranch?”
“No, but I take orders and I’m a fast learner.”
“Know anything about cattle? Horses?”
“A little about horses. I used to ride when I was a kid.”
“When you walked in here, what was I doing to Red?”
“I don’t know. What were you doing?”
“Putting on Cut-Heal medicine. He’s got a cut on his right fetlock.” She sighed, reached out distractedly to stroke the sorrel’s flank. “God knows,” she said at length, “there’s plenty of work that needs doing around this place, and most of it doesn’t require an expert hand. Hard work, dirty work. That kind bother you?”
“It never has.”
“You’d do as you’re told, no backsass?”
“No backsass.”
“I’ll have to talk to Lonnie. He’s got as much say as I have.”
“Of course.”
“Okay. While I’m doing that, you lead Red here outside and turn him loose in the corral. You can do that, can’t you? And take off his halter first?”
“Consider it done. And Dacy—thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “When you’re finished wait by the corral gate.”
He had no trouble with the sorrel. It plodded along docilely enough after him, stood still while he opened the corral gate and again while he unhooked the halter, and then trotted off to join the other two horses. He took the halter into the stable and hung it up. Then he went back out to wait.
Dacy was gone ten minutes. When she reappeared she had Lonnie with her. Without preamble she asked, “How soon would you want to start?”
“Any time,” Messenger said. “Right now.”
“Nothing you w
ant to go and do first?”
“No. Am I hired?”
“You’re hired. Temporarily, anyhow. Lonnie, take him into the barn and show him where we keep the shovels and brooms.”
HE SPENT THE rest of the morning and half the noon hour cleaning the barn and the stable. It was hot, dirty work—shoveling manure, sweeping out stalls and floors, forking hay so dry the air swam with its chaff. At first the heat and exertion made his head pound furiously, built a thin churn of nausea under his breastbone. But hurt and discomfort were old acquaintances from his time as an endurance runner; he’d learned how to use them back then, how to channel negative feelings into positive energy—an old trick that every long-distance runner picks up and adapts. Once he applied it to his clean-up work, he began to feel better, to gain stamina. By the time Lonnie came to call him to lunch, he was nearly finished and even feeling a little of the exercise high you get from marathon running.
Lunch was tacos and a bowl of thick bean soup; he wolfed down his portion. Dacy said approvingly, “Looks like hard work may just agree with you, Jim.”
“Well, I’ve never shied away from it.”
“See if you feel the same in two or three days.”
“Planning to work me like a mule?”
Her grin had a wry bend in it. “Why not? You’re strong enough and sure as hell stubborn enough.”
After he was done at the stable, she set him to digging a new irrigation ditch for the vegetable garden. And when he’d taken care of that she told him to give Lonnie a hand repairing the broken blade on the windmill. He thought that might present an opportunity to draw the boy out a little, see if he could get an idea of what Lonnie knew and was hiding—another reason he’d wanted the job here. But the opportunity wasn’t there. The platform was too narrow for more than one of them at a time; his job was to stay below, fetch materials as they were needed, and send items up to Lonnie by rope.
The workday ended at five o’clock. He was stiff and sore, and there were blisters on his hands along with last night’s abrasions, but his headache was gone and he wasn’t as tired as he’d expected to be. Internally he felt fine—buoyed by a sense of having accomplished something worthwhile, of finally making progress. He washed up at the pump near the well, was drying his hands on a rough towel when Lonnie joined him.
“Ma says to tell you she put sheets and a blanket and some other stuff in the trailer. And to leave the door and windows open so it can air out.”
He nodded. “Lonnie, before you go—thanks for agreeing to let me stay on here.”
“No big deal to me. You’re working free and we need the help.”
“You still think I’m wrong, though. About your aunt.”
“Damn right you are. She did it. Nothing you do or say’s gonna change that.”
“If there’s a reason you’re so sure, tell me what it is. Convince me.”
“There’s no reason. I just know it, that’s all.”
Messenger said, “Your ma tell you what happened to me last night?”
“She told me. Whoever those two guys are, they were just trying to scare you.”
“Pretty dangerous way to scare somebody. I could’ve been bitten and I could’ve died.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t and you didn’t.”
“A white pickup with a busted antenna, Lonnie. Ever see one like that in town?”
“Might have, once or twice.”
“Any idea who owns it?”
“Nobody we know, that’s for sure.”
Messenger went to have a look at the trailer. Single room inside, with a hanging drape to separate a sleeping area (rollaway bed with a lumpy mattress) from a sitting area (one ancient armchair, one straight-backed chair). The “kitchen” was a two-burner propane stove and a tiny countertop refrigerator. A sink, a shower stall so narrow you wouldn’t be able to turn around in it, and a chemical toilet set tight between metal partitions completed the facilities. Crude quarters, really—and a sweat-box by day and on hot nights. But he’d never been a slave to creature comforts. It would do well enough for however long he was here.
He took a quick shower, put on a shirt and a pair of slacks that he’d brought from the motel, and then went to the house. Dacy was in the living room, working at her computer terminal. She’d changed clothes too—a blouse and white slacks—and tied up her hair with a ribbon, dabbed on a little lipstick. He wondered if she’d done it for him, as he had showered and changed for her. Probably not. Just conceit to believe she had.
He leaned over her shoulder to peer at the screen. “Looks like some kind of chart,” he said.
“Ear-tag records. Fall roundup’s due soon. Every cow, steer, and calf we own carries color-coded and numbered ear tags. Gives us an accurate head count according to age and sex and lets us keep track of genealogy lines and production from different matings.”
“So that’s what you use the computer for.”
“That and a lot of other things, like keeping tabs on supplies and running models to see what kind of feed conversion we can expect if we bring in different stock. What’d you think I used it for? Playing video games?”
“No. Don’t get your dander up.”
“It’s not up. I just want you to understand, since you’re working for us now, that Lonnie and me don’t run some half-assed Western movie ranch. We may be small and hardscrabble but we’re as modern as we can get. We have to be to survive.”
“I didn’t think any differently. Okay?”
“Okay.” A small smile let him know she wasn’t really angry. “I’ll put supper on soon. Be ready in a couple of hours, maybe less.”
“That’ll give me enough time to take care of a few things in town. How late does that Western shop on Main stay open?”
“Seven.”
“Good.” He started out.
“Jim?”
“Yes, Dacy?”
She looked at him steadily for a little time; but whatever it was she meant to say remained unspoken. “Never mind. Just be back by seven-thirty if you want your supper hot. We don’t wait meals for anybody on this ranch.”
HIS FIRST STOP in town was the Ramirez mobile home. Jaime Orozco showed no surprise when Messenger told him he’d hired on temporarily at the Burgess ranch, and his reasons for doing so. Orozco seemed to approve, despite saying, “I hope you know what you’re doing, my friend.”
“So do I. I’m willing to take the risk as long as Dacy and Lonnie are.” He paused. “You knew about what happened at Mackey’s before I got here, didn’t you.”
Orozco nodded. “Ben Espinosa enjoys the sound of his own voice. Sometimes what he says is worth listening to.”
“He’s doing nothing about finding those two men. And won’t unless they’re identified by somebody else and I file charges against them.”
“I know.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea who drives a white pickup with a broken antenna?”
“No. But if the owner lives in this county, someone will know him. Or soon find out who he is.”
“Will you ask your friends? Pass the word?”
“It has already been done.”
“Thank you, Señor Orozco.”
“De nada. If it wasn’t for this leg …” Orozco thumped it with his knuckles, then shrugged and said solemnly, “A man does what he can in the cause of justice.”
“If he’s a good man.”
“Yes, amigo. If he is a good man.”
IN THE WESTERN apparel shop he bought two more pairs of jeans and two khaki shirts. Dacy had said she would take care of his laundry, but he couldn’t expect her to wash and rewash the same sweaty change of work clothes. Then he drove to the High Desert Lodge.
Mrs. Padgett had pale, shiny eyes that made him think of fat cells floating in blobs of cream. They turned avid as soon as he told her he was checking out. “Of course, Mr. Messenger,” she said. “I’ll have your bill ready in a jiffy.”
“Fine.”
“Going down to Vegas
, are you?”
“No.”
“Back home then. You are leaving Beulah?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly? I’m afraid I don’t—”
“I’ve taken a job at the Burgess ranch. Hired hand.”
“You … Dacy Burgess hired you?” Her mouth hung open as if it were hinged. The avid eyes crawled over his face like insects. “You’re going to live out there at her place?”
“That’s right. For the next ten days, at least,” Messenger said. There was a small, malicious pleasure in telling her, watching her reaction, knowing what she’d do as soon as he walked out the door.
“But … why? Why would a man like you, a city man, want to work as a ranch hand?”
“Why do you think, Mrs. Padgett?”
“I can’t imagine …”
“Sure you can. I’ll bet you have a very good imagination.”
Her trap was open again; she snapped it closed. Quickly, without looking at him again, she punched up his bill on her computer and ran his American Express card through the machine. She was eager to be rid of him now. But no more eager than he was to be rid of her.
He drove straight back to the ranch. It took him less than thirty minutes, but when he passed through the gate his headlights picked out an unfamiliar station wagon already parked at an angle near the house. Mrs. Padgett hadn’t let him down. She’d been on the phone the instant he left her.
Messenger pulled up next to the wagon. He was just opening his door when John T. Roebuck, with Dacy and Lonnie following, stormed out of the house to confront him.
17
THE INTENSITY OF John T.’s emotions surprised him; he’d expected anger but not raw, seething fury. Roebuck got right up in his face, stretching on the balls of his feet so that his nose was an inch or so below Messenger’s. His breath, hot and moist, stank of sour-mash bourbon and Mexican cheroots. The black eyes under their craggy brows caught the outspill of light from the house; it made them look as if fires burned in their depths. They reminded Messenger of the eyes of the diamondback rattler in the pit at Mackey’s. But he stood his ground, met them with a lidless stare of his own.
Blue Lonesome Page 15
