“No,” my son said, “but we swung by the office when we saw you weren’t home. Gayle Sedillos told us where you were, and that you’d be heading home in a few minutes. So I thought, what the hell. We’ll just come back and tour the grounds.”
“It’s nice that she let me know,” I grumbled.
“Nah. I told her not to,” my son said. “Leave it as a surprise. One of those spur-of-the-moment things. I tried to call you last night, but I guess you weren’t near a phone.”
“Not if I can help it. And she’s Gayle Torrez now, by the way. She and Bob finally did it.”
“Well, good. It took ’em long enough.” We stopped by the back door and my son stood with his hands on his hips, regarding the house. “The place looks great, Dad.”
“A jungle.”
He turned and nodded toward the back forty. “I was trying to find the spot where that old man buried his wife. Way out back. Remember that? Tadd thought I was making up that story.”
“Right across the street from the old Apodaca place. Directly across,” I said. “There’s a tangle of box elder saplings there now. I think their roots found the village water line.”
“We weren’t even close to the spot, then.”
“There’s not much to see now, except a little scuffed dirt.” I ushered them inside.
“So how does it feel having just a couple of days to go as el alguacil mayor del condado? ” Buddy asked. “Are you going to wake up on Wednesday and regret not being stud duck?”
“I’m going to wake up feeling wonderful,” I said without elaborating. “How about some coffee? Or there’s some beer in the fridge, I think. Or better yet, how about some real food? You guys must be starving.” I looked at the clock. “I’ve got an hour and a half before I need to be at the office.”
“The Don Juan,” Buddy said.
“That’ll work.” To Tadd, I said, “You hungry?”
“The bottomless pit is always hungry,” my son said before Tadd had a chance to answer.
We took the Bronco, with Tadd sitting in the backseat behind the wire mesh like a good prisoner.
“This thing is the pride of the fleet?” Buddy asked. He reached forward and traced a finger along the major windshield crack. “It reminds me of a couple of the old Orions they retired down at the base.”
“We’ve had an expensive couple of days,” I said. “This is the only thing with wheels at the moment.” I backed the Bronco out of the driveway, the gravel in the transfer case growling loudly.
“So what’s at five o’clock?” Buddy asked as we rattled our way up Grande.
“I told the livestock inspector that I’d help him take a kid into custody. Remember the Torrance family? They own the H-Bar-T out west of town, on County Road 14?”
“Vaguely.”
I shrugged. “Well, no reason you should. One of their boys pulled a stupid. He rustled a bunch of roping calves and trucked them on over to Oklahoma to sell. Only he knows why.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. That’s what he did. Bob Torrez says that the kid has a girlfriend. Or maybe more accurately, would like to have a girlfriend. Who the hell knows. From what I know of the girl, I’d put my money on it being a one-way romance.”
“So what’s at five? Are the courts getting so bad now that you have to make an appointment to arrest somebody?”
“Not yet. We’re making progress in that direction, though.” I shot a smile at my son. “We just wanted a few minutes to get all our cards in order. It also gives Cliff Larson, the livestock inspector, a bit of time to communicate with the Oklahoma folks and find out what they want to do at their end.”
“Amazing,” Buddy said. He watched first Grande and then Bustos slide by. “Posadas hasn’t changed much, Dad.”
“Nope.”
“You think you’ll stay here?”
“Sure.” I surprised even myself by answering so quickly. “It suits.”
Buddy grinned and turned to glance at his son, as if my reply had confirmed an earlier conversation between the two of them.
“I hope you can stay a little while,” I asked. “This isn’t just a one-nighter, is it?”
“We thought we’d stay through Wednesday,” my son replied, and braced himself as I thumped the Bronco up into the Don Juan’s parking lot. “If you’ve got room and can stand the company. Aren’t Francis and Estelle coming down sometime soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
He nodded. “We can stay down in the Posadas Inn, if that makes it easier.”
“Like hell, not when we have four bedrooms to fill. Estelle and Francis can take Camille’s room, and their two terrors can bunk in your old digs. You and Tadd can take the third. I’m just sorry Edie couldn’t come with you.”
“Couldn’t fit Mom on the luggage rack,” Tadd said.
“She wanted to come, but she has got classes she can’t afford to miss,” Buddy said. “Lawyer stuff, you know. She has just the one semester left before she takes the bar exam.” He grinned. “Getting a little bit nervous about it all.”
“She’ll do fine,” I said. We parked and entered the restaurant. My usual booth was empty, and we slid in. For the next thirty minutes, we ate and talked, and I was amused at the number of times Janalynn Torrez, our waitress, found an excuse to return to the table, either with water or coffee. My grandson had her eye, that was for sure.
I had just cleaned up the last bit of lettuce, cheese, and green chile when she appeared again, this time carrying the telephone. I groaned. My own phone was out in the Bronco, hidden under the refuse where it belonged. Janalynn handed me the damn thing, managing to do so without taking her eyes off my grandson.
“Thanks,” I said, and turned sideways, elbow on the table. “Gastner,” I said.
“You about ready to go, sir?” Robert Torrez asked.
“Yep. Give me five minutes to finish up here and then run my son and grandson home.”
“We’ll pick you up on the way.”
I switched off and sighed. “So much for peace and quiet,” I said.
Chapter Nineteen
Cliff Larson rode with the passenger window open, letting the brisk air suck out the smoke from his incessant cigarette. I had traded the aging, clanking Bronco for the unmarked sedan that Howard Bishop had just parked, its interior still pleasantly warm.
A thousand yards behind us were Undersheriff Robert Torrez and Deputy Thomas Pasquale.
During the past two hours, Larson had done more than encourage his emphysema. He’d spent time on the phone, and added to our log of information. None of it improved my mood.
The dealer in Oklahoma, Mickey Emerson, caught with stolen cattle and ready to make any kind of deal that might save his own hide, had cheerfully told Comanche County sheriff’s deputies everything they wanted to know. And it all pointed at Dale Torrance, the nineteen-year-old kid from Posadas, New Mexico.
Emerson had a copy of a transportation permit for the eighteen calves signed by Cliff Larson, and the sheriff’s investigator in Oklahoma faxed us a copy. Mickey Emerson had used that document as all the background he needed to cut a bill of sale. He didn’t look at it too closely. He paid Dale Torrance in cash, $285 for each late yearling steer-a nice bundle, even though considerably below the market price at the time.
“Pretty slick,” Cliff mused. He had his briefcase open on the seat beside him, with the year’s file of permits. “But dumber’n a post. Dale used permit two eight one oh eight.” Larson held up the clipped file. “I wrote that to his dad earlier in the summer when he was movin’ stock from the home ranch over to a Forest Service lease on Johnny Boyd’s spread.”
“He didn’t even change the number of the permit?”
“Hell no. Course, that’s harder to do.” He held up the permit, assuming I could glance over and see the number at the bottom of the page. “He did fudge some other changes, though.”
“And the name? How did he pass that off? The cattle belong to Miles Waddell, not To
rrance.”
“Well, see, that’s the beauty of usin’ correction fluid, and then makin’ a fresh copy on somebody’s copier somewheres.”
“The permits aren’t color-coded?”
“Hell yes, they are. But who’s going to keep track of that? White, blue, goldenrod, yellow, green. You think if he got stopped by a trooper on a spot check that the cop would give a damn? Or even know in the first place?” He grinned. “State police would say that’s not their job. And a cowpuncher with a load of calves in a goose-neck trailer ain’t all that suspicious in ranchin’ country. And Oklahoma authorities don’t have the same system we do. And it don’t appear that Mickey Emerson looked all that close. Or wanted to.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that the livestock market was so hot that it’d pay. What did he get? Two eighty-five? That’s a good price, but what’s Emerson stand to gain at sale? A few bucks a head. As much as a hundred per calf at the most? Why did he bother?”
“Because he could,” Larson said. “Ever wonder why somebody goes to all the trouble to take a crowbar to a parkin’ meter for a few lousy nickels and dimes?” He shrugged. “I mean, first the son of a bitch has to steal a crowbar, right? For a few minutes of his time, Emerson picks up maybe a hundred bucks apiece, and that’s almost two grand that he didn’t have before.” He crushed out his cigarette. “I imagine you’ve seen a lot worse done for two thousand bucks.”
“Of course,” I said. “Over and over and over. And it still never ceases to amaze the hell out of me. This Emerson fellow is positive it was Dale?”
“One hundred percent. I faxed the Comanche deputies a copy of Dale Torrance’s yearbook picture. No question about it. Emerson said he’d swear to it in court. And he’s got Dale’s signature on his copy of the bill of sale.”
“They’re going to want to extradite him, I’m sure.”
“Don’t count on it. They’re willing to impound the cattle for us, but they want them gone. It’s a pain in the ass for them and Oklahoma sure as hell doesn’t want to pay feed bills on eighteen head of hungry steers that are New Mexico’s problem. But we’ll let Dan Schroeder figure all that out. Hell, even if they wanted to prosecute over in Oklahoma, they’d have to stand in line. By the time New Mexico gets through with old Dale, he ain’t goin’ to be a teenager no more.” I wasn’t sure that I shared Larson’s grim satisfaction.
About twenty-five miles west of Posadas we turned south on the washboard gravel of County Road 14. Torrez kept his distance. There was no point in eating our dust. More important, by staying far enough back, we wouldn’t look like an ominous convoy bearing down on the prey. The last thing I wanted was to spook the kid.
I didn’t know what would be going through Dale’s mind. I didn’t know if he felt confident that he’d pulled off the perfect crime, or if he was a little jumpy, looking over his shoulder like a scared jackrabbit. He wasn’t stupid by nature. He had to know that what he’d done would land him in a world of trouble if he were caught.
If the heat were turned on, Dale had an example to follow, and that made me uneasy all over again. When Dale’s older brother Patrick had gotten himself in a pickle a couple of years before, he’d headed for Gillette, Wyoming. His had been woman troubles, too-but in Patrick’s case, the gal who’d twanged his heartstrings was a real wild hare who didn’t think about the legalities of what she did for more than a couple of seconds. Patrick had decided that running from her was the smartest thing he could do at the time.
I didn’t think that younger brother Dale was going to run away from Christine Prescott. Less than twenty-four hours before, I’d gotten the impression that Christine was a good deal more than just a beautiful face and stunning figure. To be a successful bartender for Victor Sanchez’s Broken Spur Saloon, she needed to be hardworking, levelheaded, honest, and tolerant. Sanchez was barely on the up side of nasty. Her boss may have had the personality of a sun-struck rattlesnake, but as long as he stayed in the kitchen, none of his customers much cared, and Christine Prescott could cope with his moods.
We all assumed that Dale Torrance had stolen eighteen head of cattle for ready cash. Whether he needed that $5,130 to impress Christine somehow, or for some other reason only he knew, it couldn’t be news to Dale that a century before, that stunt would have earned him a new rope.
Five miles farther south, we passed under the entryway for the H-Bar-T. The archway was one of those fancy scenes plasma-cut into black iron, this one featuring a cowpuncher on horseback chasing a herd of cattle through the yucca, lariat in full loop over his head.
The Torrance home was as out of place in that bleak, stark country as a Rhode Island license plate. The two-story affair was one of those things offered in catalogs back in the fifties, the white paint trying its best to gleam after a season of pounding sun.
Just before the driveway, the ranch road forked, with a trail leading around a paddock, shed, and copse of leafless elms to an older model, red-and-white mobile home.
“I think we’re late for the party,” Cliff Larson said, and my heart skipped a beat. Herb Torrance’s pickup, habitually crusted with mud and range dust, was pulled up in front of the front steps of the house. Another older model pickup with dual back tires was nosed in beside the mobile home. No amount of road dirt could hide its battle scars, the fenders and flanks dented and torn from a long, hard life.
Parked immediately behind it, half blocking the driveway, was the truck we’d seen just a couple of hours before carrying Miles Waddell and friends.
Chapter Twenty
Step into a crowd of people, and sometimes it takes a few seconds to sort out who’s who-and who’s doing what to whom. This time, it was easy.
Even from across the open spaces of what passed for a front yard, I could see Miles Waddell’s red hair. He, Mark Denton, and Ed Johns were standing by the front of Miles’ new truck. I pulled in immediately behind them, missing the back bumper by a hair breadth, and Johns turned slightly to see who had arrived. The others were riveted on the action and could have cared less.
In this case, the action was Herb Torrance and his son Dale…and one of their blue healer pups. Two dozen steps away from the three men, Dale was backed up against the side of the mobile home, pegged there by a father whose face was livid. The dog was frantic, darting this way and that, yapping his fool head off, unsure whether to leap into Herb’s arms, jump on Dale, or bite them both.
I got out of the car just in time to see Herb come up with his right hand, hard. The blow took Dale on the face, a crack that I could hear across the yard. The kid’s head snapped around and for a moment he lost his balance. His right hand swung out against the side of the trailer for support as his feet flailed, one of his boots catching the dog in the face. At the same time Herb’s hand flashed again, and this time Dale sprawled against the trailer’s skirting.
Waddell leaned against the grille of his truck, his arms folded in satisfaction over his chest. He glanced at me as I rounded the side of their truck, and then nodded at Cliff Larson.
“I thought I told you to stay away from here,” I snapped, and Waddell shrugged.
“You took your own fair time getting here,” he said. “And hell, we’re just watchin’.”
As I advanced on Herb and his son, I couldn’t hear what the older man was saying, even if the dog hadn’t been hysterical. It was no yelling match. Herb bent down and grabbed Dale by the shoulder, their faces no more than an inch apart, Herb’s voice a hoarse croak.
“Just hold on there,” I bellowed as I approached. Two strides separated me from Herb’s back when Dale’s foot lashed out and caught his father on the ankle. At the same time, the boy twisted, taking advantage of his father’s loss of balance. Using both hands and feet, Dale scrambled wildly out of his father’s grip. He flailed wildly for traction even as Herb slammed his hand against the trailer to stop his fall.
“Dale!” I shouted, but the boy was a human jackrabbit. He’d gotten his feet under him and sprinted along the side of t
he trailer, Father in pursuit, blue healer dancing around them. Lame as Herb was from years of winter knees and livestock kicks, he managed a credibly fast sideways lope, his left leg dragging stiffly.
“Eeee haw,” Waddell cried with delight.
I heard Bob Torrez’s vehicle pull in behind mine. If there was chasing to be done, better someone sure of step, fleet of foot, and strong of heart. Waddell and his buddies weren’t about to help, and Cliff Larson would cough himself to death before he ran twenty feet.
For whatever reason, Dale Torrance headed toward the paddock area and the complex of loading chutes. What good that was going to do him wasn’t clear, other than to put some railroad ties between him and his father. Just when he had his father beat in their foot race, something caught the toe of his left boot and he went flying, crashing into the bottom two-by-six face first. The rough wood caught him across the mouth. It must have hurt like hell if he’d been in the mood to notice. But his father was bearing down on him.
Herb slowed enough to scoop up a length of splintered fencing, a chunk of wood about four feet long and maybe two inches square-about twice the size of a broom handle. The dog made a grab for the other end and missed.
Within range of the boy, Herb let fly and I could hear the wood sing. Dale had scrambled to all fours, blood streaming from his mouth. The swat caught him solidly on the rump, a hard whack that raised dust from the seat of his pants.
“Sir?”
I turned and saw Tom Pasquale at my elbow. A few yards away, the undersheriff was moseying toward us, in no hurry. Years before, I had heard him tell another deputy that the best way to survive a career of being called to break up nasty bar fights was to “arrive late and arrest the loser.” As sound advice as that might have been, it wasn’t Pasquale’s style.
I held up a hand. “If he starts hitting him in the head,” I said. “Otherwise, they’re having a little family discussion on family property.”
Herb made pretty fair use of that chunk of board, driving his son across the small corral that fed the loading chute. He connected two or three times, and by the second time, the healer decided that if Herb was hitting the kid, it was okay to bite him, too. On the other side of the corral, the dog got a mouthful of jeans just above the boot, and that put Dale off balance. The kid took the opportunity to roll under the fence, dog still tussling.
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