by Robert Greer
Cozy’s early-morning start from Denver put him at the base of the eastern slope of the Big Horn Mountains and within fifteen miles of Buffalo, Wyoming, by eleven a.m. More than a century earlier the quiet ranching community had been home to Wyoming’s fabled Johnson County wars, a series of shootouts, skirmishes, and killings that had erupted in 1892 during a dispute between large and small ranchers over cattle grazing rights. Although the wars had long since ended, squabbles over grazing and water rights still arose in the valley on occasion.
After getting home to Denver late the previous evening, Cozy had called Grant Rivers, the man Lillian Griffith had told him an anonymous caller to Digital Registry News had complained about, swearing that Rivers was tied to the Tango-11 murder. The half-asleep-sounding Rivers had grudgingly agreed to meet Cozy at his Four Creeks Ranch the next day at noon—but, he emphasized, only if he could give his side of the story on why Carl Ledbetter, the man Rivers claimed to be Digital Registry’s anonymous source, had tried to link him to a murder.
As Cozy gazed from his truck at red-rock foothills and a river valley of endless green, he had the feeling that he was driving through some lost nineteenth-century fantasy world. The frontage road he turned onto from I-25 was precisely where Grant Rivers had said it would be, and a mile and a half later the county road that Rivers had told him to take a left on was there as well. As he headed down the washboard road toward Four Creeks Ranch, he had the sense that the raspy-voiced Rivers, who’d sounded when they talked as if he’d either smoked for far too long or had major throat surgery, might turn out to be some kind of High Plains reincarnation of the Marlboro Man.
Four miles later, still awed by the scenery, he crossed a cattle guard and drove beneath the massive log entryway to Four Creeks Ranch. A black, hand-forged, three-foot-tall “Lazy M” brand hung from the entryway crossbeam, swinging back and forth in the breeze. Just beyond the entry the ranch opened up into a secluded valley rimmed by steep red-rock walls and massive outcroppings. Tens of thousands of acres of heavily treed national forest rose in the distance from the valley floor. Whispering, “Damn,” and drinking in the unspoiled beauty, Cozy continued driving.
Rivers, who’d sounded like a man who wanted exoneration and also like someone who had nothing to hide, had said he’d be cutting hay by the time Cozy arrived. “Just look for a big old John Deere 4640 and a swather and you’ll have found me” had been his parting instructions. When Cozy spotted the tractor and a hay swather stopped midway down a fence that bounded the northern edge of a six-hundred-acre alfalfa field, a field that he could see also had a landing strip, he headed straight for them. As he got closer and realized that a man was standing inside one of the tractor’s six-foot-tall tire rims, he was pretty sure he’d found Grant Rivers.
Uncertain how he’d be received, since Rivers had deadpanned during the previous evening’s conversation that he didn’t much like reporters, Cozy mulled over an interview strategy. Pulling the dually to a stop, he realized that the man had stepped from the tire rim and was now down on one knee, fidgeting with the tire’s valve stem. When the man looked up and waved for Cozy to join him, Cozy slipped out of his truck; walked several yards to the fence that separated them; and, careful not to drag his bad leg, vaulted the fence scissor-style.
It was easy to see that the ruddy-complected man wrestling with the valve stem was frustrated. Pudgy and sixtyish, with thick, bushy eyebrows and pockmarked skin, the man wore a grease-stained engineer’s cap. Cozy suspected that at one time he had been all sinew and muscle, but that day had come and gone. Thrusting a meaty hand at Cozy as he walked up, the man announced in a voice that sounded as if it were being filtered through an echo chamber being bombarded by hail, “Grant Rivers.”
“Elgin Coseia,” Cozy said, shaking Rivers’s hand.
“Well, if you ain’t, I’m guessin’ you’re his twin since you’re drivin’ a dually with Colorado plates, just like you said you’d be.” Rivers smiled, showing a set of downhill-sloping dentures.
Glancing down at the tire that Rivers had been struggling with, Cozy said, “Looks low.”
“Yep. It’s got a slow leak.” Rivers dusted off his hands and squared up to Cozy in the noonday sun. “Been tryin’ to decide whether to repair it or shoot it. But since I know you ain’t up here to ogle the Big Horns like most visitors, or to listen to my tractor woes, I’m thinkin’ we should handle your issues straight off so’s I can get back to mine.”
“Works for me,” Cozy said, glancing across the field to where another big John Deere sat idling. A man wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigar occupied the cab. Looking back at Rivers, he said, “Like I mentioned last night, I’m looking into that murder that happened outside Wheatland a couple of days back.”
“No need to pussyfoot around the issue, son. I know all about what happened at Tango-11. Believe it or not, we get the news up here, too.” Rivers adjusted his cap backward, then forward again on his head.
“Any chance you knew the dead man, Thurmond Giles?”
“Don’t think I knew him, but you never know. Back years ago I thought I knew my neighbor up the road. The one who sicced you on me in the first place, fuckin’ Carl Ledbetter. That damn water-stealin’ bastard’s been lookin’ for a way to slipstream my water rights away from me for years. Maybe the SOB thinks that by gettin’ people to thinkin’ I killed somebody, he’ll get my water. But he won’t, and he ain’t. Now, to answer your question, me and your dead man could’ve crossed paths back in the late ’70s and early ’80s when all them antinuclear protests were takin’ place out this way. But I couldn’t swear to it.” Rivers suddenly looked perturbed. “Got myself hung up in the middle of that protest mess back then, though Lord knows I tried my best not to. Had protesters show up at a missile silo that was right on my doorstep, and more than a few times, I might add. Even took a few shots at the bastards before the air force finally sent some of their boys out to shoo ’em off.”
“Giles was an African American, if that helps jog your memory.”
“Wouldn’t‧ve make no difference to me if he was a Martian. I don’t really recall knowin’ the man.” Rivers dusted off his hands as if to say, Next question. The quizzical look on Cozy’s face triggered a brief Rivers laugh. “Guess I should explain a few things to you, son. Things that go back to the ’80s and them antinuke protests I just mentioned—by the way, what’s your political persuasion? You right-leanin’ or left?”
“I’d say I’m pretty much middle of the road.”
“Well, I ain’t. I’m hard-line libertarian, and proud of it. Ain’t always been that way. But I am now, and I’m guessin’ that it’s my political leanin’s as much as him covetin’ my water rights that put me on old Ledbetter-down-the-road’s enemies list. Anyway, here’s the deal. Your snitch, and that’s what the hell Ledbetter is, is more than likely hopin’ that he can get information about me that goes back some twenty-five years to come out. Stuff that goes back to when I used to ranch in Nebraska over near Kearney in the sandhills.”
Rivers looked eastward and frowned. “Back then the government wanted a slice of the sixty thousand acres I owned to build themselves a couple of missile sites like the one they found your dead man at. And originally, at least, not very much of a slice. Just over eighty acres is what they started out sayin’ they wanted.” Rivers, who’d started to sound like an overworked foghorn, looked a little embarrassed and cleared his throat. “Me bein’ patriotic and all, I sold ’em the land. Next thing I know the government’s got my water rights and my BLM grazin’ rights tied up in court. And the bastards didn’t stop there. They went right after my forest service grazin’ permits.” His face seared with anger, Rivers said, “What the turds really wanted wasn’t just a single spot for their missiles, not at all. They wanted land for a dozen of their damn missile-silo sites and my goddamn water rights to boot.
“It took me over four years, a hell of a lot of lawyerin’, and most of the money I had in the world to wrestle them so
ns of bitches to the ground. But I did. Got my water rights adjudicated proper, and every one of my BLM and forest service grazin’ permits solidified. The only downside to the deal was that the SOBs got to keep my original eighty acres and their two fuckin’ missile silos. Knowin’ that even with the courts findin’ in my favor, they might come back, I sold out lock, stock, and barrel to an oil-drillin’ company with pockets a whole lot deeper than mine and moved my ranchin’ operation from Nebraska to here. But not, unfortunately, before I got to enjoy a couple of hell-filled years of havin’ a bunch of damn antinuke protesters camped out on my damn doorstep at them two missile silos the air force built.”
“I’m thinking you made the right choice with your move. Beautiful country you’ve got here,” Cozy said.
“Forty thousand acres of paradise, to be sure,” Rivers said proudly. “Not as big as my Nebraska spread, but it’s a lot more peaceful, there’s not a damn missile silo in sight, and there aren’t any air force MPs, high-tech nuke jockeys, or stringy-haired hippies traipsin’ across my land!” Looking pleased, he went on, “So to net it all out, it’s entirely possible that your dead man could’ve been out there at my place in Nebraska. Maybe he even manned a silo back on the land the government snookered me out of durin’ them protest years, but like I said earlier, if he was there, I damn sure didn’t know him. Got any kind of better description on him besides the fact that he was black?”
“Not too much more, really. He was six-one or -two, skinny, and when they found him he had five stab wounds in his back, and the head of his penis and a wad of paper had been stuffed in his mouth.”
“Sounds like somebody was lookin’ for revenge. But I ain’t the guy,” Rivers said dismissively.
“Do the names Sarah Goldbeck or Buford Kane ring a bell?”
Rivers glanced skyward thoughtfully before responding. “Can’t say that they do. Who are they?”
“A couple of longtime antinuclear folks. What about Kimiko or Rikia Takata? Know them?”
“Nope.” Rivers’s response was immediate and emphatic, so much so that Cozy found himself wondering why. Thinking that he’d need to dig a little deeper into the life and times of Mr. Grant Rivers, he said, “Any other gripes or insights you’d like to share with me?”
“Just one.” Rivers’s face turned almost salmon pink. “You might as well know about it because you’re a reporter, and we all know that what reporters do for a living is dig up dirt. Anyway, those air force jack-offs, the ones the government sent out to my ranch in Nebraska to deal with them protesters? The brass who hold themselves up as bein’ so God-fearin’, country-lovin’, and high and mighty? Well, they’re all a bunch of lyin’ bastards.”
“Why so?”
“Because they kicked my boy outta that blessed U.S. Air Force Academy of theirs down in Colorado Springs, that’s why. Claimed he was caught cheatin’.” Rivers glanced toward his landing strip. “And that’s after I spent years teachin’ the boy to fly. Fuckin’ liars. Cost me a bundle in attorneys’ fees to fight that battle, too.”
“Did you win?”
“Nope. But the whole deal let me know once and for all to never get involved with anything that has to do with the goddamn government. Best thing is, my boy, Logan, found out what kinda bastards they are as well.”
“So what’s Logan do now?”
“Helps me run this place. It’s a better deal for the both of us.” Rivers looked across the field to where the other tractor was now slowly pulling a brush chopper along a heavily weeded fence line. When the driver leaned out of the cab and waved their way, Cozy asked, “Logan?”
“You bet,” Rivers said proudly. “We done here for the day?”
Thinking that the opinionated, right-leaning old rancher had been quite cooperative, maybe even a little too much so, Cozy said, “Yes.”
“Good. ’Cause I need to get back to that tractor tire and my hayin’.”
“I may need to talk to you again, and maybe to your son as well.”
“I’m always here for the askin’. As for Logan, he ain’t. He’s part owner of a farm implements store down in Cheyenne. Spends a good deal of his time down there. He flies up here to help me when he can.”
Glancing across the field toward the tractor and recognizing that he was outnumbered, Cozy decided that right then wasn’t the time to go toe to toe with Rivers and son. He instead slipped his wallet out of a back pocket, teased out a business card, and handed it to Rivers. “Call me if something comes up related to the Giles murder that you may have forgotten to mention.”
“Nothin’ comes up much out here, friend, except alfalfa and the wind.” Rivers slipped the card into his shirt pocket. “Gonna mention me in what you’re plannin’ to write?”
“Probably.”
“Well, be sure and get the name right. It’s Rivers with an s.”
“I’ll make certain I do. And it’s Logan with an L, I presume.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my boy outta this,” Rivers said, clearly annoyed.
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
With the vein that ran along his left temple suddenly pulsating, and without so much as a parting word, Rivers turned and took two giant steps toward his tractor. In a couple of seconds and with the agility of a gymnast, the sixty-one-year-old cattle rancher was up in the cab. A plume of black smoke rose skyward as he cranked the engine and took off across the alfalfa field toward the second tractor, the slow leak in his tire seemingly now of little concern to him.
Silas Breen had been to his mountaintop. He’d walked the Notre Dame campus, seen the golden dome, tiptoed onto the grass of the hallowed Notre Dame football field, and admired the mural of Touchdown Jesus. His sightseeing journey, however, had put him a little behind schedule with his delivery, and just before two p.m. he decided it might be best to call the Amarillo, Texas, number he’d been given to check in with F. Mantew in case of an emergency.
The squeaky-voiced woman who answered, “Amarillo Secretarial Temps,” told him that no one named Mantew was at that number but that she had received a fax from an F. Mantew instructing her to tell a Mr. Breen if he called that the final destination for delivery of his goods was now Lubbock rather than Amarillo. She didn’t mention that she’d been promised two hundred dollars in cash to go beyond her normal job duties, which entailed simply receiving a fax and holding it for the recipient, not passing along messages.
“Where’d the fax come from?” Silas asked, upset that he would now have to drive 120 miles beyond his original destination. Sitting in the cab of his truck in the parking lot of the motel where he’d spent the night, with his lower lip poked out in protest, his legs stretched out on the front seat, and his cell phone pressed firmly to one ear, he waited for an answer.
“I’m not certain, but the area code’s a Mexico one.”
“Mexico?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“And you’re sure the fax is from someone named F. Mantew?”
“That’s the name on the document, sir.”
“Okay,” Silas said with a sigh. “Can I get your name?”
“It’s Doris.”
“And the name of your company again?”
“Amarillo Secretarial Temporary Office Services.”
“So where am I supposed to go in Lubbock?”
Thinking that she was earning every cent of her potential two-hundred-dollar bonus, Doris said, “The fax says your delivery destination is 181 East Clarkson, sir.”
“And there’s nothing else with the fax? No other instructions? No explanation as to why the change in cities?”
“No.”
After a lengthy, jaw-clenched pause, Silas said, “Thanks,” hung up, and set his cell phone aside. He stepped down from the cab onto the recently tarred, nearly empty parking lot of the Motel 6 where he’d slept so well. Looking around and listening to the rumble of traffic speeding by on nearby I-90, he walked to the back of his truck, unlocked the padlocked rear cargo door, and
shoved the door up with a grunt.
He stared into the semidarkness for a few seconds to let his eyes adjust, then unclipped a flashlight from a mount just inside the door, snapped the beam on, and shone it into the cargo hold. Every one of the twenty crates he’d left Ottawa with was there, tied down and undisturbed, exactly as they’d been when he left.
Looking puzzled, he climbed up into the cargo bay, walked between the crates, and counted each one. The identical wooden crates were stacked in twos, atop one another, upright-freezer-style. A three-foot-wide, cargo-free center aisle separated the two rows of ten crates each. Two toolboxes, the kind designed to straddle a pickup bed, sat on either side of the cargo door. Fighting the urge to uncrate one of the boxes or look inside the padlocked toolboxes, Silas looked baffled. He poked, prodded, and sniffed his way around a half-dozen eight-by-four-by-four-foot crates for the next several minutes, deciding finally that the crates looked no different from the hundreds of other crates he’d hauled hither and yon since starting his moving business. The wood was cheap but sturdy, and the crates had been professionally assembled. There was no smell coming from them, no bugs escaping from or crawling around on them, no leaking chemicals, and, most importantly, no hazardous-cargo markings, the very last thing he’d double-checked for before signing the shipment manifest in Ottawa. Even so, there was something strange, even a little foreboding, about his cargo.
Mystified and wondering if he’d been snookered into hauling unmarked chemical waste, stolen goods, or maybe even drugs, Silas backed his way out of the truck, reclamped his flashlight in place, closed the cargo door, and made a mental note to call Ottawa later in the day to see if he couldn’t get a better line on what he might be hauling besides “hospital equipment.”
As he padlocked the cargo door, he glanced nervously around the parking lot. He saw half-a-dozen randomly spaced cars, a single pickup, and two idling tractor-trailer rigs. As he walked back to his cab, he realized that his hands were shaking. He decided that during one of his next road breaks, he’d call his father, Otis, in Kansas City, and discuss the whole strange situation with him.
