by Lisa Preston
“C’mon, Charley. Let’s go, Decker.”
That good blood bay gelding labored. It felt like this lope was using the last of his reserves, but he gave it a good try. We cut westward, away from Trenton’s land, toward the true summit, to the police crime scene, and Charley got left behind, unable to keep up.
Poor Decker was black with sweat, except for where he’d lathered along his shoulders, neck, and chest. His scent filled my nose. Ordinarily, horse sweat makes me very happy, but now I saw the man who’d killed a dog in Nevada and another right here on this ranch. I now realized that I should have paid more attention to the way Charley avoided Stuckey over the weekend.
Stuckey was bent over at the summit, digging where the stone boy had stood, the rocks already kicked over in a rubble pile.
I should have asked Ivy how long the stone boy had been there. Was it Fire’s grave marker? I remembered during dinner when Stuckey admitted to shooting the dog and Gabe said he was buried in the low land. Why lie?
Then I reconsidered the tip I’d given Steinhammer fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Things started making sense. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that Vicente earned money and didn’t use a bank.
Stuckey stood, looked over his shoulder at the rifle on the four-wheeler’s handlebars, measuring the distance between me and it and him. A death triangle.
Decker slowed to a trot then a walk, I had to raise my voice to be heard over the gelding’s hard breathing.
“Stuckey, it’s over. I know.”
I guessed anyways. Stuckey had killed Vicente for Vicente’s buried wages. The guys had seen the rock cairn Vicente made, guessed he kept his money there. Except they guessed wrong. Vicente didn’t bury his money, certainly not all of it. Eliana had kept it for him. And after he was gone too long, she sent the extra money home.
Stuckey braced the shovel across his chest and studied me.
I pulled out my cell. Power, yes. Reception, yes. Thank you, summit.
Stuckey whipped the shovel back. I goosed Decker forward, beat Stuckey to the four-wheeler, and tumbled off the horse, letting go of the reins as I grabbed the rifle.
Stuckey gripped the shovel. “This is where Vincent—”
He cut off his whining as I brought the rifle straight up, meaning business.
“His name was Vicente.”
Chapter 28
ON MY FAR LEFT, STUCKEY’S RIGHT, someone hollered, “Hold it right there.”
From my near right, Stuckey’s left, my peripheral vision showed another man edging up hands forward, shouting. I pointed the rifle at the ground between me and Stuckey.
I meant to give everyone a warning shot to back off, but the gun went click instead of bang. So, I guess the thing with those semi-automatic rifles is, is they have to have the slidey-thingy yanked on them the first time.
Well, we all figured out that Rainy wasn’t really the cold killer type. We being me and the sweating Sabino Arriaga, who rushed forward, yanked the rifle from my hands, racked it, and pointed it at Stuckey, who’d come to a decision and was fast closing in.
Reese Trenton galloped toward us, hollering, pistol drawn. I wondered about the route he’d used to get from his land onto Ivy’s. It had something to do with the north edge of the hill, a route I’d never examined since it was off the Beaumont land.
Decker snorted and danced a widening circle around all of us, ending up at the west edge. He snorted at the treacherously steep descent to the interstate that Sabino Arriaga had just climbed. There was no way a soft conditioned horse like Decker, especially having already been ridden hard, would go down that slope. Only one horse in a few hundred would be capable of the descent. Decker spun, but his dragging rope reins caught on brush and he quieted.
Charley panted up, eyeing all of us. Stuckey, Trenton, and Sabino all looked at each other, one with a shovel, two with guns. This had to stop. Everybody needed to just sit down. Two seconds ago, I’d been the one in the best position to make them do it.
Sabino stared at Stuckey but spoke to me. “Did he kill my uncle?”
It seemed a bad time to say that yeah, I thought so.
Trenton reined up hard. “I told you idiots to hold it right there.”
Stuckey checked the distance between himself and the three of us he could put in striking distance, me and Reese Trenton and Sabino Arriaga.
Before today, I’d never gotten why Vicente was killed. Maybe the question was not who had the most to gain, but who had something to gain. Or who had something to hide.
“Stuckey,” I asked, “are you looking for his money?”
“What money?”
“Vicente’s cash.” I was running out of patience and clearly not the only one. Trenton shifted on his horse. Sabino looked from Stuckey to me and back again.
Stuckey looked purely puzzled at our confusion. “I ain’t doing nothing bad. I’m looking for Fire.”
“Fire?”
“I think Gabe prolly buried him up here. It ain’t right. Ivy asked us to get him cremated.”
I remembered how Gabe didn’t come to the summit, even that first time I rode on the Beaumont ranch. It’s not true that people go back to the scene of the crime. People avoid it like the pox.
“Why’d you have that livestock collar, Stuckey? Why’d you have it hidden in your locker?” Both were good questions I was too late in asking,
Stuckey studied his feet. It was clear he’d been getting static from someone about this. “I don’t know. It’s just, I seen it and I thought, I don’t know, but I saved it. Put it away.”
“You saw it where? When? Tell us what happened.”
Sabino lowered the rifle. Trenton lowered his pistol. Charley lowered his head, eyeing us like we were so many misbehaving calves. Stuckey sniffed and rubbed his head, spreading dirt across his sweaty face. “It was after … after I accidentally shot Fire. And, you know, Gabe took care of that. He always took care of me before. He’s smart.”
“The collar, Stuckey.”
Trenton raised his voice, the presiding judge at our hilltop trial. “He’s the one who mutilated the dog!”
“Gabe cut him.” Stuckey pointed at Charley and turned to face Trenton. “He said it was just in case you checked. But you didn’t stay for the breeding.”
I snapped. “You held Charley down while Gabe cut his ears?”
Stuckey’s chin quivered, along with his voice. “Yes’m. I know it ain’t right. Gabe had me hold him good.”
Go ahead and shoot him, fellas.
Oh, the thoughts that dance in my mind, loom like forest fires, need to be beat back.
“The collar, Stuckey. Tell me about the livestock collar.”
“Gabe threw it away in the forge room one night. I saw him washing his hands. It was after Vin—” He cleared his throat hard, shooting Sabino and me careful looks. “It was after I killed Fire. After we bred Flame in his place. After Vicente took off—”
“Vicente never left,” I said.
Stuckey frowned and rubbed his head. “Well, we all thought he did is what I mean. It was after it seemed like he took off.”
I looked at Trenton, a man who was a good enough judge of character to believe everything Oscar told him and come to try to rescue Charley from the ranch.
My mind flashed on Gabe’s clothes being covered in dirt not long before Ol’ Blue went dead. Ol’ Blue wasn’t getting any juice. Gabe had crawled underneath and disabled my truck, I figured. Maybe popped the fuel line. He was a cool customer to be heading down for the official police interview and polygraph after all he’d done, counting on not being asked the right questions. I shook my head and reminded Stuckey of where he was supposed to be right that minute, getting a ride from Gabe to go talk to the police. “Then everything gets straightened out.”
“No, he ain’t,” Stuckey said. “He packed up all his stuff.”
“He’s not going to the police interview?”
Stuckey shook his head and snorted. “He’s going to Canada. An
d he wasn’t going to dig Fire up for Ivy, so I had to.”
Sabino pointed at Stuckey but kept the rifle pointed at the ground and asked me, “He is not the one?”
Trenton snapped. “Well, it was one of them!” His horse pinned its ears but stood steady.
I asked Stuckey, “Gabe’s the one who killed Vicente and—”
“Well, it wasn’t anyone else—”
“And he’s running? He’s getting away?”
Stuckey nodded. “Guess so.”
I wondered if Gabe had to fuel up, maybe buy some road food. Maybe take the smaller roads before he crossed town and hit the interstate that would curve around to the bottom of the very hill we stood on. In the worst way, I wanted this to be over. I called my Intended and never felt better than the split second the line opened and I heard his voice.
“Rainy! I’m coming for you. We’re all almost there.”
Best news ever.
“I’m in a pickle,” I said. “There’s a man we’ve got to stop. He’s trying to get away and—”
“Stay where you are. Don’t move. Where are you?”
“Where are you? He’s going to be on the interstate any minute, heading north in a hurry, driving a beater green full-size old Ford Bronco with Nevada plates. He’s the problem. His name’s—”
Unbelievably, Guy hung up on me.
Chapter 29
THE TRIANGLE OF MEN AROUND ME—SABINO Arriaga, Stuckey, and Trenton, still ahorseback—eyed each other. The three critters—Trenton’s horse, Decker, and Charley—shifted in place. The distant hum of interstate traffic over the hill’s steep west edge filled out the wind then changed for the worse.
A semitruck gassed its air horn over and over. Car horns blared, tires locked up and laid rubber. Sounded like the makings of a major pileup.
Cell phone still in my hand, I skidded a half-dozen steps down the west edge of the hill. Charley moved to follow me. I didn’t need my old fellow sliding down that treacherous slope.
“Charley, stay.”
Charley obeys a good thirty commands, which is a whole pile more than Guy.
A semitruck-and-trailer was crosswise on the northbound side of the interstate, blocking all lanes. Easy odds on who’d caused that mess and thank goodness for him.
I scrambled back up to the top, hollering at Trenton. “I’ve got to get down there pronto. I think my fellow passed the word to my daddy, and he’s trying to stop Gabe for us. Please, you watch over my Charley dog another hour.” I tried to catch Decker’s lead rope.
Reese Trenton managed not to look like I was full of good ideas. “You’ve seen that Man from Snowy River picture too many times.” He stepped off his horse and thrust the reins toward me.
“Huh?”
“It’s your rodeo,” he said. He waved for me to mount up as he released his reins and he edged toward Decker, reaching for the loose lead rope on the halter, murmuring, “Easy there, boy, steady.”
I mounted Trenton’s gelding and felt a lot of horse under me. Yeah, a whole lot. And I was real glad that Trenton and I used the same length of stirrup, ’cause when I pointed this horse at the edge, it jumped.
We landed in a downhill gallop, every footfall sliding on the steep scree, the horse leaping again and again, front end catching us and lifting, faster and faster. The wind forced tears that blurred my vision. I hung on to the saddle horn like it was the doorknob to heaven.
Halfway down the hill, the view was good enough to glimpse the mess of the stopped northbound lanes. A Shasta County deputy car, apparently responding to a radio call he’d received up north, barreled down the southbound lanes.
Bam! One north-bounder—a beater green Bronco—detoured the mess of stopped traffic by off-roading it, busted through the hard wire fence that ran along the freeway. The dust cloud created by Gabe’s off-roading rose to meet us, but I could still see that the Shasta deputy wouldn’t be able to cross the median and to the break in the fence. I angled this incredible Quarter Horse under me. He agreed to the new line, hindquarters catching us and thrusting us across and down the slope.
When we hit bottom, the horse was entirely unfazed by the car horns and congestion. He took my cue to sprint after the Bronco which cut inland past the big hill. Shrubbery clotted along the interstate fence on my left. A solid cross fence loomed less than a few hundred yards ahead of the Bronco. Would he stop? Do a brody and charge us? Try to make it through the bushes and break through the interstate fence again, then speed north?
Gabe put the pedal down, flattened a T-post with the center of his Bronco. The cross fence popped, wire strands flinging back like someone had thrown a brick onto a guitar. I reined in hard. Trenton’s gelding dropped his haunches and plowed the dirt with his hind end but got us stopped before we hit the wire. It wasn’t barbed wire, but I still wasn’t going to chance snagging a fetlock in a loop of the ruined fence. I walked the horse over the broken strands holding my breath. Ahead, Gabe was slowing to dart around a hundred head of scattering cattle.
Trenton’s cattle. I saw him far to my right, having used his secret route off the north end of the big hill. Made sense he’d have such trails. And I saw he rode like an expert, even riding one-handed, bareback, and clutching my dog to his body. I kicked Trenton’s horse back up to a gallop.
Ahead of Gabe, the shrubs thickened to real trees, a forest that wouldn’t allow a Bronco through. Whether or not there was another cross fence ahead, the trees would stop both Gabe’s northbound run and any try to get back to the interstate. If only the cattle were thicker, they could stop Gabe to the east.
Reese Trenton tried to push cattle toward the Bronco, but they were scattering, having too much real estate to spread out on. He didn’t have enough control over the herd to get them to block Gabe in.
I shouted, “Charley! Charley!”
Trenton reined up, doubled over, and let Charley down to the ground. Then he loped Decker on, still doing his bit to try to make the herd trap Gabe, but his effort wouldn’t do near enough.
“Charley,” I screamed from the saddle, “come bye.”
He did, swooping with hidden taps of power from within his tired little old self, gathering the herd, packing them tight. Before they met the Bronco, I reversed him with another command.
“Away to me.”
When Charley turned, the cattle pushed away from him, packing in tighter on the oncoming vehicle. When Charley was exactly behind them, his presence would push the herd toward me. I pulled up Trenton’s awesome gelding to holler a stop command to my great dog.
“Lie down!”
The Bronco slowed but kept coming at the cattle. I moved the horse to take the flank position Reese was shooting for. He saw my move and angled back, around, ready to support the final push.
“Walk up, Charley. Walk up!”
Charley moved up on the herd, head low, daring the cattle, showing the hundreds you shall not pass.
They milled, uncertain.
My Charley stood his ground, finding a depth of courage possessed only by the bravest hearts.
The tough part about playing chicken is not flinching. At all.
It’s a mighty tall order.
It’s also a lot to ask of a herd of hundreds of startled cattle moving alongside the interstate: turn around and face an oncoming, off-road vehicle.
Find the dog and cowboy and the screaming woman on the great gelding more of a threat than the old Ford Bronco.
They chose well.
***
The police showed up then, which was not bad timing all around. Six batches of them, explaining they’d been planning a raid on the Beaumont ranch after they bagged trying to sting Ivy’s drug operation through Solar.
Charley moved all the air in that cow pasture through his good dog lungs. If we stayed, birds would drop out of the sky on account of him sucking up all the oxygen.
The way I wanted Guy, his voice, his warmth, his face, right there, right then was big.
Then Guy showed up
in the back of a police car, him and Hollis Nunn—having explained to the responding cops following the dirt tracks from the broken interstate fence—that the cowgirl was instrumental to the events. Guy and Hollis got out of the back seat and got their arms around me, pulling me off Reese Trenton’s blowing horse.
My brain tried and tried to engage, but it was slipping its clutch something fierce. “You hung up on me.” I couldn’t get my arms around Guy soon enough to suit myself. He was here. My Guy had come for me, and his wraparound hug and body press felt more than wonderful.
“Oh, Rainy.” Guy nuzzled my hair.
Gabe went into handcuffs then into the patrol car’s back seat, right where he belonged. I realized it was him in his navy blue baseball cap that Trenton had spied digging a grave, and I wondered if it had been intended for Oscar—where Gabe planned to lay all the blame—or Stuckey, or even me, The cops called for a four-wheel-drive tow truck to impound the Bronco, and I told the driver I might need him for Ol’ Blue back at the ranch.
Yeah, it took a while and plenty of talking to get this mess sorted out.
Sabino and Stuckey trundled down Reese Trenton’s north slope path off the hill on the four-wheeler. The police spotted the rifle in the handlebars and screamed at them to dismount with their hands in the air.
Soon as he was clear enough of the cops, I went to Sabino. Without meeting his gaze, I tucked my chin in to try again. “I need to keep this dog. I love him. He belonged to your uncle, like the donkey and maybe the mule. The donkey is out with the sheep where he likes it. The mule needs a job. But this dog, he’s got a job with me and I love him.” The repetitions necessary to make Sabino Arriaga understand that my dog was rightfully his uncle’s property made it real.
When he seemed clear, I said it simple, “Let me keep this dog.”
“He carved.”
“Huh?”
“My uncle carved on wood, sometimes on trees.”
I nodded, knowing, because just about everyone who loves the West has heard tell of how Basque herders long carved things on trees in those vast flocks they’ve managed in the Great Basin and beyond.
