Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  "Well, it ruined him." Bronc was still talking. "He couldn't get it out of his head. I sometimes thought all his running around was on account of that. Either way, I think he never felt he'd done right by his wives, whether because he didn't give 'em kids or he ran around on 'em, I don't know."

  "What were Jack's first two wives like?" I asked curiously.

  "Well, Karen, the first one, she was a nice girl, a ranch girl. But she couldn't stand Jack's philandering. Maybe if she'd've had kids it would have been all right, but I don't know. She got fat and bitter in just a few years and a few more years later she'd had enough.

  "Now Laney, the second one, didn't have a mean bone in her body, but Willy, here, was a little smarter than she was. She lasted almost ten years, but she got tired of Jack playing her for the fool finally; it was just too goddamn obvious. She stuck him for a whole lot of money in the divorce, more than Karen got, by a long shot. Had a smart lawyer, I guess. I hear she lives in a big house down in Capitola now."

  Was this a motive, I wondered. Did the long-gone Karen just want her fair share? Or did Laney want more? All of the wives had a motive, since, supposedly, all of them had known about Jack's will. Including Tara, the only one of the three I knew. Knew and detested.

  "What about Tara?" I asked Bronc, and got my strongest reaction yet.

  "That goddamn Tara was purely a bitch." Bronc spat on the ground to emphasize his words. "I never hated a woman worse than I hated her."

  "Do you think she killed him?" It just seemed to pop out of my mouth.

  Bronc didn't answer. For a minute he stared at me and then he turned away and untied Willy from the hitching rail. "I'd better get to feeding."

  "Bye, Bronc," I called after him as he headed to the barn. "You going to Freddy's tomorrow?"

  He stopped for a second and looked back at me. "Might as well."

  "I'll see you there," I told him.

  "You bet. And if you get tired of that big lunk you're running around with, you just let me know." Bronc chuckled briefly and led Willy into the barn; I could hear the click as an electric light turned on, spilling yellow light out the door to where I stood. Following the broad lit swath to my pickup, I jumped in and cranked the heater up to full blast.

  It was black dark when I pulled into my own driveway and got out of my truck. I could hear Blue whining on the other side of the door; I'd left him in the house since I hadn't felt I'd have any time for him in the course of the endurance ride, and he was eager to be let out. Walking him down the steps to the small yard I'd fenced by the creek, I noticed with a pang how stiffly he was moving. Even a year or so ago I would have left him in the yard with its sturdy doghouse, but between age and arthritis Blue couldn't take the cold anymore; the slightest drop in temperature caused him to shiver.

  If he lived, this spring he would be fifteen. If he lived. I watched him stump around the yard, then urinate awkwardly by half squatting-he could no longer manage to lift a leg-and a knot twisted in my stomach. Blue looked very old and fragile, and he was getting weaker. Some day soon, the time would come.

  I could hardly bear the thought. Blue had been a part of my life for so long I almost couldn't imagine who I would be without him. Was this the way Bronc felt about Jack, I wondered suddenly. As if he himself were incomplete, no longer the same person, now that Jack was gone.

  Of course, Bronc hadn't acted very upset about Jack, but then he wouldn't. Men like Bronc felt that to show or even acknowledge emotion was a sign of weakness. Bronc's whole way of being demanded that he deny all vulnerability and be tough and carry on. Yet the old man had been grieving in his own way. I had felt it in my gut, though he'd given no overt signs.

  And Travis, I wondered, how was Travis taking it? Bronc said he had gone to town. Was Trav even now at some bar, drinking himself under the table?

  Blue stumped up to me and sat, leaning against my leg. I squatted down next to him and put my arm around him, rubbing his chest. He leaned harder, showing his appreciation, but I noticed he didn't smile. That dog "smile," an open-mouthed, happy pant, hadn't been on his face in a long time. Another sign.

  I walked slowly up the stairs, accommodating myself to Blue's pace, and let both him and the cat into the house, then went straight to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of wine. Call me weak-minded, but reminders of mortality always make me want a drink. First that talk with Bronc about Jack, and now the obvious fact that Blue was getting near his end.

  At the moment what I wanted was to forget, and I chose the time-honored method. Three glasses of wine, a scanty dinner of soup and bread, and I rolled into bed in the pleasant stupor of mild inebriation, no longer worried about death or anything else.

  TEN

  At eight o'clock the next morning I was driving down the road to Lonny's, Blue sitting on the seat beside me, alive for one more day, anyway. Turning into Lonny's narrow driveway, I pulled up next to his bam. Automatically my eyes skimmed over his two horses, Burt and Pistol, finishing their breakfast hay in the corral nearest the bam, and moved on to the next corral. There were two horses in this pen, too, one bay, one light brown, heads down, nibbling at the last few pieces of alfalfa. I climbed out of my truck, fetched two halters from the bam, and went to catch them.

  Heads lifted at my approach, ears pricked forward. Gunner, the bay, nickered, a deep huh-huh-huh sound, and walked to meet me. A second later Plumber gave his shriller, higher-pitched nicker and followed Gunner in my direction. I leaned on the gate, watching them.

  Gunner looked more like one of the Budweiser Clydesdales than the well-bred Quarter Horse he was. His winter coat was especially thick and shaggy and he grew long feathers on his fetlocks, just like a draft horse. With his heavy black mane and tail, big white blaze and high white socks, he would have fit right into the beer wagon team.

  Of course, I could have prevented all this shagginess by keeping him blanketed and in a stall. But I felt horses were happier living in a more natural way, and in the mild Santa Cruz climate a few oak trees were adequate shelter for animals who had been allowed to grow their winter coats.

  So Gunner and Plumber lived here in their half-acre pen on Lonny's property, next to the corral where he kept Burt and Pistol. The pen was built of brand-new metal pipe panels-panels that had, as it happened, eaten up most of my savings account. But pipe fencing is one of the safest and most trouble-free sorts available for horses, and I felt it was worth the investment.

  Plumber edged up to greet me as I blew into Gunner's nostrils, and I rubbed the cocoa-colored gelding on his forehead, tracing the small white star, at which Gunner pinned his ears jealously. Plumber was much neater-looking than Gunner; his winter coat was fairly short and shiny, and he didn't tend to grow long hair under his jaw or on his fetlocks. Since he seemed to stay just as comfortable as Gunner during winter storms, I was at a loss to understand nature's ways on this issue. It seemed to me that the main result of all that excess shag was to make Gunner a lot harder to clean up.

  Haltering both horses, I tied them to the fence and began the process of brushing the dried mud off their coats, combing their manes and tails, and picking out their feet. Lonny came walking down the driveway from his house while I was engaged in this activity, a wide smile on his face, ready to begin the day's fun.

  He hitched his dually pickup truck to the four-horse stock trailer while I finished brushing my two horses, then we caught Burt and Pistol and I turned Plumber back out into his corral. The colt was still slightly off in his right front, the result of an injury that had been the reason I acquired him, and I didn't mean to start riding him until he was completely sound.

  Gunner we loaded in the trailer, along with Burt and Pistol, and after a quick double-check of the hitch and door latch to make sure both were safely closed, I lifted Blue into the cab of Lonny's truck and we were off.

  The mixed weather of the day before had cleared; the sky was deep winter blue, new grass brilliantly green on the hills. I smiled at the dazzle of wil
d mustard in full bloom in an old apple orchard-the almost unnaturally vivid fluorescent yellow startling against the dark gray skeleton shapes of the trunks.

  As we neared Salinas, the round hills along Highway I0I slowly flattened into the broad plain of the Salinas River Valley. Lonny made the right turn onto Martinez Road, headed for Freddy's arena. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the dirt entry road.

  Trucks and trailers were parked randomly in the flat field next to the roping arena, with ropers and their horses visible everywhere. The arena itself, with its old much-repaired wooden fences weathered to silver gray, surrounded on three sides by an amphitheater of green hills, seemed even more historically colorful than usual this sunny morning.

  Freddy waved a friendly hand at me as I got out of the truck, and I waved back. In some ways, Freddy himself was almost a personification of California history.

  Freddy was Freddy Martinez, seventy years young; he'd been running a roping in this arena on the outskirts of Salinas for fifty of those seventy years. Freddy often said he was married to the arena (giving the exact number of years at the time); like most of Freddy's pronouncements, it was something you tended to hear expressed frequently and loudly.

  He was loading cattle into the chute now, a short, stocky olive-skinned man with a look of latent power despite his age. His voice, a cheerful bellow, rose at regular intervals, scolding his help, pushing the cattle, calling to the arriving ropers. Doing what he'd been doing for generations. Freddy, the living legend.

  As Jack Hollister had been, I thought suddenly, the image of Jack dousing my good spirits like a bucket of ice water. Jack, who had been murdered, shot through the head, should have been here this morning, warming up his horse in the sunshine, talking to his friends.

  My eyes sought and found Bronc, riding Willy in the center of a knot of people, all of them on horseback, walking slowly around the arena. Everyone seemed to be talking at Bronc, who, uncharacteristically, looked quiet. People saying they were sorry about Jack, I thought, wanting to know what had happened, speculating on who, how.

  Watching Bronc pace silently around the arena, I was struck by the fact that he looked very alone. Jack would normally have been riding next to him, laughing and telling stories in that courtly way he had, all noblesse oblige, the perfect contrast and complement to Bronc's noisy hilarity.

  Where was Trav, I wondered suddenly, and then spotted him on the other side of the arena, talking with a group of kids. Well, men in their twenties. Though I wasn't much older than these guys, they always seemed like kids to me-a certain frisky, puppyish quality in their behavior lending itself to that impression. But why wasn't Trav with Bronc? The thought had barely crossed my mind when it was followed by another. Bronc had seemed strangely reticent about Trav yesterday. Was something wrong between them? Maybe I could talk to Trav.

  But not now. Lonny was unloading the horses and tying them to the trailer; it was time to get to work. I helped him saddle; as soon as we were done he swung up on Gunner. At five years of age, Gunner was still pretty green as a rope horse and it fell to Lonny, as the more experienced roper, to do the training. I was barely able to manage riding my horse and roping a cow at the same time; training a young horse simultaneously would have been way beyond me.

  Getting Blue out of the cab, I walked him for a while, then put him in the horse trailer where he'd have more space and ventilation. After I was sure he was comfortable I climbed on Burt and rode into the arena.

  Almost immediately I was absorbed into the friendly bustle of the ropers-people saying hi, horses nickering to other horses, over all Freddy's raucous voice admonishing one John Porter to watch where he left his car parked all night, folks would notice. Everyone in the arena heard; I suspected people two miles away in downtown Salinas might have heard, too. Freddy's voice was almost as famous as he was; he'd never installed a loudspeaker at his arena and none was necessary.

  Smiling at the banter, I took in the day and the crowd of horses and people and my heart lifted. Warm winter sunshine filled the south-facing bowl of hills that ringed the arena; grass glowed green on every rounded curve. Even the air smelled green. I felt as if someone had rolled spring into a ball and tossed it at me, saying "catch."

  Reaching down to pat Burt's neck in the only expression of gratitude I could come up with, I grinned when he pinned his ears crossly-a characteristic response. Burt was a grouch. Tough-minded and irascible, he walked away when a human approached to catch him, humped his back when the cinch was pulled tight, and pinned his ears ferociously when he was touched or even spoken to. It was all bluff, though. Burt was as willing and pleasant a horse to ride as could be imagined (once one warmed the hump out of his back with some easy walking and trotting). He'd taught me to rope virtually single-handedly, ignoring my clumsy signals or lack thereof, and doing his job perfectly over and over again. It was due to him that I'd developed the confidence to begin competing.

  I kicked him up into an easy lope and watched Lonny loping Gunner. In contrast to Burt's relaxed demeanor, Gunner was all eyes and ears, spooking constantly at things that struck him as "horse eaters." I wasn't surprised; this was only Gunner's fourth trip to a real roping arena; all his previous experience had been in Lonny's practice pen at home. On top of which, Gunner had a spooky streak-a strong inclination to jump first and ask questions later.

  As I watched, Tommy Branco tossed his rope playfully at Gunner's heels, then laughed as the colt scooted forward abruptly. Lonny laughed, too, sitting squarely in the middle of the saddle, not even bothering to pick up the reins. That, I reflected, was one of Lonny's great advantages on a horse. His confidence gave his horses confidence.

  Freddy was bellowing at us again, ordering the ropers out of the arena; it was time for the roping to begin. Compliantly the cowboys filed out; we were all well broke to Freddy's commands. As I guided Burt through the gate, I was struck by the fact that the crowd around me, though equally horsy, was a very different group from yesterday's endurance riders.

  Mostly male as opposed to mostly female, clad exclusively in blue jeans, the ropers had a rough-edged look that was somehow evocative of ranches, though baseball caps were as prevalent as cowboy hats, tennis shoes were almost as common as boots, and no pretense was made, either by men or women, of the fringed and beaded look seen line dancing at Western bars. The horses, too, were horses of "another color"; while Rebby had been the lone representative Quarter Horse in a herd of Arabs, team-roping horses were predominantly of Quarter Horse breeding, and most were big and stout. All in all, there was an essential frontier spirit in the friendly group that jostled around me this morning; I could picture these ropers signing up to cross the prairie with a herd of longhorns.

  "We're entered. Number thirty-one." Lonny gave me a wide smile as he rode up beside me and I nodded, feeling my heart start to pound nervously.

  Par for the course. I'd only started competing at team roping a few months ago, and I always had a mild attack of nerves before I rode into the box. Turning Burt away, I walked over and parked him behind the chute, where I could watch the roping and rehearse what I needed to do.

  Freddy was calling the teams out now; from my vantage point behind the chute I watched team number one, which turned out to be Travis and Bronc. They couldn't be too upset with each other, then. Trav was backing the sorrel mare he rode into the corner of the header's box. His face looked very young as he signaled with a short jerk of his chin and Freddy flipped the lever that opened the gate and released the steer.

  In a split second all the poised, quiet tension of the moment erupted into violent motion. The steer leaped out the open gate of the chute and Trav's mare burst out after him, with Bronc on the heeler's side following their lead. Off they went down the arena, the steer running as fast as he could, both horses in hot pursuit.

  Trav caught up to the steer about halfway to the end and roped it cleanly around the horns. Dallying his rope around the saddle horn, he turned his horse off and began to
pull the steer. Bronc came in for the heel shot, Willy pinning his ears as he closed in.

  Bronc threw his rope, the open loop landing neatly in front of the steer's back legs. Pulled by the head horse, the steer landed in the loop and Bronc jerked his arm back, tightening the noose. Another second and the ropes came tight; the flagger dropped the flag to record time.

  Ten seconds-a respectable run. I hoped I could do as well. Hell, I hoped I could just manage to turn my steer.

  Swallowing hard, I turned Burt away and began to walk him around the dirt parking lot, keeping him loose. At twelve years, Burt was old enough and had enough miles on him that his hocks tended to get stiff if he stood still too long. Thus I always tried to get him warmed up before we made a run.

  Team roping moves quickly. In just a few minutes, it seemed, Freddy was on number twenty-seven. Soon it would be my turn.

  I loped Burt up and down the sandy parking lot and stopped him abruptly. He checked easily in response to my cue, and I walked him out, confident he would respond to me in the course of the run. Burt was about as foolproof as a rope horse could get.

  Freddy called out number thirty-one and I rode Burt through the little gate in the side of the header's box and backed him into the corner. My heart was pounding; I could feel Burt's heart pounding between my legs.

  I glanced over to the heeler's box to see Lonny sitting at his ease on Gunner, who was dancing in nervous agitation. Lonny gave me a wide, encouraging smile.

  Shifting my attention to the chute I fixed my eyes on the steer, a red and white spotted longhorn. Rule number one of team roping: Never take your eyes off the steer.

  A longhorn-that probably meant speed. Gearing myself to drive Burt hard, I took a deep breath, steadied my hand on the reins, and nodded. With a clang, Freddy's hand dropped, the gate flew open, and the red and white steer leapt out.