The Grim Reaper Comes Calling

by Darrell Maloney

  “How in heck can a sheriff’s office just go out of business?” McDermott asked aloud when he saw the sign on the shuttered door:

  BLACNO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

  CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

  REFER ANY COMPLAINTS TO

  LOCAL POLICE DEPT.

  SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE

  Tony had his own question.

  “How in heck can they misspell Blanco?”

  McDermott hadn’t even noticed the misspelled word.

  The two marched over to another building across the town square.

  The sign in front of this one said:

  BLANCO POLICE

  Red Poston, Chief

  This sign was hand-painted by Red’s best friend Lilly.

  And everything was spelled correctly.

  Once inside the police station, McDermott repeated his question to Red.

  “How in heck can a sheriff’s office just go out of business?”

  Red smiled. She had a magical smile which tended to soothe ruffled feathers and calm down the angriest of people.

  “Well, Sheriff Whitaker only had eight deputies when the power went out. Two of them were killed by marauders the second night of the blackout and the other six quit to protect their own families.

  “Two days after everybody quit the government sent word that the dollar was worthless. He tried to hire replacement deputies but couldn’t find anybody willing to risk their life without getting paid.

  “Bless his heart, Sheriff Whitaker struggled along by himself until he had a heart attack and his wife made him retire and move to north Texas.

  “Right after that the government started issuing blue dollars. Now we have the money to pay new deputies, but no sheriff to find them and hire them.

  “That’s the bad news, sir. The good news is that things are pretty slow on the city side. I’m all caught up working the burglaries and looting, and that’s really the extent of our crime problems these days.

  “I have some time on my hands. I’d be more than happy to help you if I can.”

  That was good enough for Mason McDermott. He didn’t really care who investigated the theft of his cattle, as long as somebody did.

  During the whole conversation thus far, Tony Davis said not a single word.

  Instead, he sat in a chair next to McDermott, his eyes affixed on Red’s pretty face.

  Tony was a big believer in love at first sight, you see.

  He didn’t know anything about Red or her situation.

  He hadn’t even laid eyes upon her until ten minutes before.

  He didn’t know whether she was single or married.

  But he knew he was hopelessly in love with her.

  Red noticed him as well, of course. He was a good looking guy himself.

  But since he hadn’t said anything, she’d written him off as a faithful helper for his boss.

  And a very attentive listener.

  “Tell me about the theft,” she said to McDermott.

  “In the fall we took herd number four up to the back forty for the winter. The prairie there is covered with mostly winter grass, so they can graze all winter long. Even in moderate snow the grass stays more or less alive until the snow melts, and the winds up there keep it from accumulating.

  “Herd number four consisted of a hundred and twenty head when we moved ‘em, and we took a good count to make sure they were all there.

  “When we brought ‘em back in the spring we counted ninety seven. We found the carcasses of three, killed by coyotes. About average for an unguarded herd for that length of time.

  “We also counted six new calves. High, but I ain’t gonna complain. Seems that was the season for havin’ babies.

  “After all the pluses and minuses were factored in, we lost twenty head.”

  “Pardon me for asking a silly question, Mr. McDermott. I’m not a cattle person. But I know your ranch encompasses over a hundred square miles of land. Is it possible your missing cattle are still there? That perhaps they just wandered off to a different part of your ranch?”

  “Oh, that’s not a silly question at all, Miss…”

  “Please, call me Red.”

  “As I said, Red, it’s not a silly question. The Rocking F is rather spread out. But it’s sectioned, as most large ranches are. What we call “the back forty” is kind of misleading. It started out as a forty acre section surrounded by barbed wire.

  “Over the years it’s been enlarged several times and is now more than three hundred acres.

  “It’s a lot of land, but we’re confident the cattle are gone. You see, I rode myself to a bluff on the highest part of the section. From that bluff, with a pair of binoculars, I can see the whole section. And once we took those ninety seven head out of there, there was nothing left but jack rabbits, ground owls and prairie dogs.

  “And one coyote. But he’s dead. Shot him myself.”

  Tony finally spoke.

  “From five hundred yards. Hell of a shot.”

  “Well,” McDermott went on, “I ain’t a fan of coyotes. Most animals, they have a place in this world. They keep the rodents in check or they eat the varmints that eat my cows.

  “Or they clean up Mother Nature’s messes or feed me and my men. That’s why I tolerate buzzards and jack rabbits and owls.

  “But in all my years I ain’t never come up with a purpose for coyotes even bein’ here. They kill my cattle and serve no purpose that I can see. So I kill ‘em every time I see ‘em.”

  They ended their first meeting with Red’s promise she’d ride the entire fence line with Tony Davis. If McDermott’s cattle had been rustled they’d have to have left his property somewhere.

  And that somewhere would be marked by a cut fence.

  Chapter 20

  Had Red known it would take her and Tony three weeks to find the downed fence she might not have been so free to volunteer her services.

  She felt a duty to, though, since she’d sworn to uphold the law and she was the only law left in the county.

  Finding the three strands of cut barbed wire on an isolated section of the huge ranch didn’t do them much good.

  The evidence showed the cattle had been driven through the fence by five men on horseback. But the ground turned too rocky not long after and made tracking the herd impossible.

  The evidence was several months old by the time they found it. Too old for horse shoes to be matched to the horses of any suspects, and they had no suspects anyway.

  All Red had was the basics: five unidentified suspects who took the cattle off the Rocking F ranch and disappeared. They could be anywhere in Blanco County, or anywhere else, for that matter.

  The cattle weren’t branded but had numbered ear tags, which could be easily removed and replaced.

  In all likelihood, though, Red suspected the cattle had been slaughtered and ended up on somebody’s dinner plates long before. Keeping such evidence around in cattle country wouldn’t be very smart.

  She reluctantly put the case in her “cold case” file and apologized to McDermott that she couldn’t do more.

  “You tried, and I appreciate that,” he told her. “You put a lot more effort into it than you had to.

  “I’m gonna go back to branding my cattle. I stopped doing it several years ago when it became standard practice to tag ‘em instead. But I think there’s a psychological hesitance for a real cowman to steal branded cattle from another cowman.

  “I think it goes back to the days when men were hung for rustlin’. Not many tried it. Them that did didn’t do it for long.

  “Things was different back then. Cowmen lived by a code of ethics that’s largely gone away. Back then you kept your hands off another man’s brand. You didn’t dally with another man’s wife and your word was your bond.

  “Those were far better days, if you ask me.”

  “When you take the cattle up to the back forty next year, would you let me know, Mr. McDermott?”

  “Sure. But why?
”

  “I know some of the cattlemen whose land butts up against yours. I can ask them to help us keep an eye out for rustlers.

  “In fact, I already talked to Jack Lane, who owns the Double T Ranch just to the north of yours.”

  “Jack’s a good man. An old-timer like me.”

  “Yes, sir, he is. I’ve known him for years. My daddy used to buy horses from him. Jack told me that in the winter time most of his cowhands spend their nights hanging around the bunkhouse with not much to do. He’s going to start having them ride fence at night. Maybe that’ll help scare the rustlers away.”

  “That’s a good idea, Red. Maybe I’ll do that myself.”

  He turned to Tony and asked, “What do you think, Tony? You think the boys would pitch a fit if I asked ‘em to do a little more for their pay?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, boss. Most real cowboys ain’t happy unless they’re in a saddle, day or night.”

  “Sounds like a plan, then.”

  With that, Red closed her case. The cattle would likely never be recovered, and the next best thing was a gameplan to prevent the theft from recurring.

  Sometimes a detective doesn’t get the outcome he wants and has to settle for something less.

  Red got something else out of the deal.

  She got Tony Davis for life, whether she wanted him or not.

  During the days they were riding fence together Tony fell harder and harder for the red-headed beauty.

  At one point he even expressed his love for her.

  “I can’t help it, Red. I look at you all day long, but it still ain’t enough. When I close my eyes at night I see you again, and you pretty much haunt my dreams all night long. I’d marry you in a heartbeat, but I’m too afraid to ask you. If you said no I… I… well, I just don’t know what I’d do.”

  She was unsympathetic to his plight.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not going to ask me, Tony. I’d really hate for you to do something stupid.”

  It wasn’t that Red didn’t like Tony.

  She could tell early on he was a good man.

  He was honest and seemed to have the right set of morals. Morals Red didn’t see much of these days.

  And it wasn’t that he wasn’t her type.

  If she were in the market for a man she’d be after a man much like Tony. He was handsome and wholesome and reminded her of her husband Russell, who was murdered the previous year.

  As she told Lilly in one of their girls’ only heart to hearts, “If I let myself date Tony I might be doing it for the wrong reasons. I might be doing it because he reminds me so much of Russell. And Tony deserves better than that. He’s a good enough man to be judged on his own merits, not because he looks like someone else.”

  Lilly, way more experienced in the affairs of the heart than Red, pointed out Red’s faulty logic.

  “Red, honey, Tony wouldn’t care if you compared him to a jackass. He’s head over heels in love with you. As long as he catches you and talks you into marrying him, he doesn’t care how you get there.”

  Lilly’s comment forced Red to reexamine her reasons for keeping Tony at arm’s length.

  Finally she admitted to Lilly, “I guess despite his reminding me of Russell I just don’t feel anything for him other than friendship. That might change over time, I guess. But I can’t be in a relationship with him if that feeling isn’t there.”

  She said more or less the same thing to Tony one afternoon when he talked her into a picnic in the town square.

  “Red, why are you telling me this?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I just don’t want you to feel that I’m leading you on.”

  “You’re not. I can see in your eyes you don’t feel the same way I do. It’s okay. I accept it.

  “I just need for you to accept that I’m not gonna give up on you. I’m gonna keep pursuing you until you either come around to my way of thinking or put a bullet in my head.”

  She laughed.

  “Okay,” she said. “As long as I have options.”

  Chapter 21

  On the face of it, it wasn’t much of a deal.

  At least not from Tony’s point of view.

  But it was better than nothing and he’d take it.

  Every Saturday morning since then Tony followed the same routine.

  He got up, stretched, then showered and shaved.

  He joined anybody else who was up for biscuits and eggs in the bunkhouse kitchen. More often than not he did the cooking, since most of his friends couldn’t scramble eggs without burning them.

  Sometimes he wondered if they burned them on purpose so they would get out of the detail.

  In any event, it didn’t matter, for Tony didn’t mind cooking.

  In pretty much every cowboy bunkhouse there are two types of residents. There are cooks and there are cleaners, and the two are mutually exclusive.

  Once the cooks serve up the food they’re out of the kitchen. They can eat their meal in the relaxed knowledge that someone else will clean up after them. Someone else will wipe down the stove and the counters. Someone else will do the dishes. Someone else will sweep and mop the floors.

  Life in the bunkhouse has changed little in the last two hundred years or so on the ranches of the west.

  So in the grand scheme of things, cooking on a Saturday morning wasn’t a bad thing.

  Even when he cooked, Tony was generally out the door by nine a.m. or so.

  He’d visit the stables and find his pony, a four-year old Morgan named Flash, and check him from head to toe. He’d feed him before saddling him up, and by ten a.m. they’d be off.

  Toward Blanco.

  To visit Red.

  And every time Tony would have the same wish in his head; that Red would have come to her senses since the last time he saw her and was ready to marry him.

  This particular Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful. Tony wasn’t like a lot of men, in that the beauty of the changing seasons weren’t lost on him.

  On this particular morning there was a crisp late-autumn chill in the air. It was fresh and clean and smelled of the slow rot of the leaves as they fell from the trees into creeks and streams and the puddles from passing rains. As the leaves broke down and started to decompose they took on a slightly musty odor which permeated the breeze.

  Maybe the reason Tony appreciated this time of year was that he had a highly-tuned sense of smell. He could smell things most men couldn’t.

  When he was a kid he was surprised to learn that many of his friends couldn’t smell rain. He could, very easily, even hours before it fell from the sky. He was a kid his parents relied on to announce a coming rainstorm when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  From the age of four he was the family’s early warning system, as it were. On his command car windows were rolled up and laundry was taken off the clothesline and brought indoors.

  And he never let them down.

  Later he found he could do the same thing with a coming snowfall. And he was baffled to learn his friends couldn’t smell the pungent smell of a handful of freshly-fallen snow.

  There were other things as well.

  When he and Red were looking for a break in the fence where their rustlers spirited away McDermott’s cattle, they came across what Red thought was cow scat.

  “No, it’s from a horse. And we have no loose horses on this part of the ranch. One of our rustlers came through here.”

  Red was at a loss.

  Horse scat is different in appearance than cow scat. It’s more pelletized and clings together, instead of just hitting the ground in a big messy splat.

  But this scat was severely degraded after being on the ground for several months getting rained on.

  It could have come from either animal, in Red’s opinion.

  But no, Tony announced after he dismounted and smelled a handful.

  “This definitely came from a horse.”

  That this cowboy riding with her could sm
ell the difference in droppings between two different animals which had essentially the same diets impressed Red.

  That he had such a refined sense of smell was a fluke of nature, for nobody else in his family had the same trait.

  And it came in handy for other reasons as well.

  It was now a year and a half after the power went out.

  People who lived in cities and towns where fresh water was available for bathing were still making the effort to be civilized.

  They were still keeping their bodies clean, as they’d been trained to do by their mamas and their daddies so as not to offend their friends.

  Travelers, and specifically highway nomads, or others who lived off the land, didn’t have ready access to showers or bathtubs. They had no easy way to wash their bodies or their clothing, and generally walked around pretty rank.

  Most of them grew used to it after awhile and stopped noticing. The people they hung out with smelled the same way, and eventually they became “nose blind” to it.

  Tony rode Flash at a moderate clip along the shoulder of Highway 281. Riding alongside highways was the quickest way to get around on horseback. For this part of the country tended to be sectioned off into blocks of land belonging to a dozen different ranches.

  Even then, individual ranches were sectioned off into areas used for grazing, or breeding, or growing. Each section was separated from the others by traditional three-strand barbed wire fencing.

  And as any working cowboy knows, most working horses are lousy at jumping fences.

  Western movies would have one believe that every horse can jump a high fence on the run without breaking stride.

  Real cowboys call those horses “show ponies.” They’re bred to be jumpers and compete in rodeos and riding events, but are pretty much worthless when riding a fence line.

  “Working horses,” on the other hand, would likely break a leg (not to mention the rider) if they ever tried to jump a barbed wire or any other fence.

  And cutting a fence so one can ride through someone else’s land?

  Well, in Texas that’s considered bad form, and just short of a capital offense.