by Ben Rehder
“Nope, I’m a virgin.” Another suggestive smile.
By now, Rodney was waiting for Allen Funt to step from the brush and tell him he was on Candid Camera. “It’s really simple,” he said. He showed the woman how to load the shotgun, the proper way to hold it, and where the safety catch was. “The main thing is, never aim it at anything you don’t intend to shoot.” He handed her the weapon.
“Ooh, this feels nice.”
“Great,” Rodney said. “Let’s see if Honeybee can scare us up some quail.”
“That would be really fun, Rodney. But first, let me try a few practice shots.” Suddenly, the woman turned, shouldered the shotgun, and aimed at Rodney’s one-year-old pickup. Before Rodney could react, the woman fired.
The first shot tore through the front grille and loosed the contents of the radiator.
The second shot turned the windshield into a network of cracks with a gaping hole in the center.
The last shot punctured the right front tire. The air whooshed out and the truck bowed like a circus elephant on one knee.
Rodney began to whimper softly.
Honeybee cavorted around the woman with glee.
The woman turned to Rodney and said, “Well, look at that. I think I’ve already got the hang of it.”
“You’re about the most stupidest hillbilly I ever met, you know that, Billy Don?” The men were back in Red’s truck, driving over to Emmett Slaton’s house. Red felt certain they’d both get fired this time. They had wasted a great deal of time chopping cedar on the wrong ranch, and now they had to come clean with their boss.
Over on the passenger’s side, Billy Don was pouting. “It wasn’t my fault, Red. All I done was foller the map, and it was wrong.”
“The map, huh?”
“You saw it.”
“But you’re the one who drew the freakin’ map!”
“Oh yeah.”
“I have to tell ya, I’m impressed, though. I didn’t even know you could operate a pencil without an owner’s manual.”
Billy Don gave Red a harsh glare—kind of a cross-eyed grimace that appeared when he was particularly angry—and Red knew he was walking on thin ice. Billy Don was a three-hundred-pound brute, and Red decided he’d better ease up.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do about keeping our jobs. Just leave the talkin’ to me.”
As Red turned into the gate at Emmett Slaton’s ranch, a late-model Lincoln coming the other way barreled through beside him, blasting its horn. Red caught a glimpse of the driver as it passed by. “Hell’s bells, what’s wrong with that guy?” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “You know, that looked like that Eye-talian who tried to hire us last week.”
“Wonder if his offer is still good?” Billy Don whimpered.
Red hissed: “You can go to work for a wop if you want, Billy Don, but not me. Besides, somethin’ didn’t feel right.”
The man had called Red on the phone, offering an employment deal that included complicated incentives and escalating per-acre commissions. You could make a coupla g’s a week if you work hard enough, the man had said. Red wasn’t sure what a “g” was, but he had pulled a few fast ones in his time and he thought it sounded like a scam. He said thanks but no thanks, he was sticking with Slaton.
Red parked the truck and the Doberman bounded off the porch, howling at the visitors.
“Hey there, Patton,” Red said, and the dog wagged its docked tail. “Look what we got here.” Red pulled a piece of beef jerky from his pocket and Patton gently took it from his hand. “You’re just a big ol’ pansy, ain’t ya? Where’s your daddy at?”
As if he understood, the dog ran to the front door and barked.
Emmett Slaton opened the door and ushered the men into his den. “What brings you out here this time of day, boys? You done with the Leaning X already?”
Red held his hat in his hand and told the full story, waiting for Slaton to get angry, tell them they were both idiots. But Slaton didn’t get mad, and actually seemed distracted, as if he were hardly listening.
When Red was finished, Slaton simply nodded. Then he pulled a large handgun out of a drawer and laid it on his desk. “Either of you ever shot a forty-five? I want to sight this in, but my eyes ain’t quite what they used to be.”
Red was startled. “What about the Leaning X, sir? Ain’t you gonna fire us?”
“Aw, hell, son, I would never fire you for that. Besides, you wasted your time, not mine. Now help me sight this gun in.”
Red stared down at the weapon. “Somethin’ got you worried, Mr. Slaton?”
The rancher shrugged. “Aw, not really, son. But a man can’t be too careful these days.”
Sunday evening, a cold front moved southward into Blanco County, bringing half an inch of much-needed rain, harsh winds, and a twenty-degree drop in temperature. John Marlin was glad to see it. The first week of deer season was always his busiest, and the nasty weather would help put a damper on poaching activities around the county.
He received only one call that evening. Just after sundown, a hunter on a day lease had struck an axis deer with his truck. The landowner was furious, claiming the hunter owed him two thousand dollars for the imported exotic buck. The hunter didn’t see it that way, and wanted the landowner to pay for the damages to his Chevy. Marlin knew the law, and sided with neither of them.
Over the phone, he told them the hunter wasn’t liable for the cost of the deer and the landowner wasn’t liable for the damages to the truck. They each had to take their own lumps. That seemed to satisfy them both, and Marlin hung up, grateful he didn’t have to brave the weather for something so petty.
CHAPTER SIX
The rain was long gone by Monday morning, but things were still slow—no calls from the sheriff’s dispatcher—so Marlin met Phil Colby for breakfast at a small cafe attached to the bowling alley in Blanco. He was also expecting to see Rodney Bauer, who had called Marlin’s home number early that morning. Bauer wouldn’t specify why he wanted to see Marlin, but said it had something to do with an odd incident that happened while he was quail-hunting yesterday.
The diner was quiet, with only a dozen or so customers, all die-hard regulars willing to brave the weather for a hot breakfast. Marlin and Colby were in a booth, drinking coffee, waiting for the waitress to bring their orders.
“You watchin’ the Cowboys this afternoon?” Colby asked.
“Probably catch it on the radio,” Marlin replied.
“Lookin’ like a pretty bad year.”
Marlin nodded.
“Their runnin’ game has gone to hell,” Colby said, “and their defense is a sieve.”
Marlin heard the jingle of the bell hanging on the front door of the diner and glanced over, but it wasn’t Rodney Bauer.
“Have I told you about my new two-seventy?” Colby asked. “That sucker can hit the same hole twice at a hundred yards. Can’t wait to get out hunting next week.”
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” Marlin said. He knew Colby was trying to draw him into conversation, to help him quit dwelling on other, less pleasant topics. Like the fact that Becky was gone, probably for good.
Unfortunately, in a small town, gossip travels faster than a spooked mare, and Marlin knew the locals were wondering whether he and Becky were still seeing each other. Marlin had no idea why people were so interested in other people’s social lives. They were always asking vague, not-so-innocent questions, giving him sympathetic looks, trying to draw information out of him. What have you been doing lately? Haven’t seen you in town much... where you been? You still living by yourself out there in the sticks? Like the other day, when Susannah Branson had asked him if he had lost weight. What Marlin had heard, between the lines, was: Haven’t you been eating? What’s bothering you? That’s why he had given her the smart-ass “tapeworm” answer. Because Marlin didn’t want to talk about it.
Colby went quiet and focused on the basketball game playing on the TV mounted above the bar.
After
a few minutes of silence, the bell jingled again and Rodney Bauer walked in. He spotted Marlin and Colby and strolled casually to their table. “Hey, John—hey, Phil. Y’all mind if I join you?”
“I thought that was the plan,” Marlin said, and Rodney sat down.
Rodney signaled the waitress for coffee, then leaned in close over the table. He whispered, “Something really strange happened to me yesterday, John, and I’m pretty pissed off about it.” In a quiet voice, Rodney led Marlin through the events of the day before.
“She jammed the muzzle of your gun into the mud?” Marlin repeated. Next to him, Colby let out a small laugh.
Rodney nodded. “That’s what I said: She shot the shit outta my truck, and when she was done, she shoved my gun into the mud. Then she said that I should be ashamed of myself. For shootin’ birds, of all things.”
Colby suppressed a giggle by trying to disguise it as a cough. “Ain’t funny,” Rodney said, glaring at Colby. “Took me a solid hour to clean that mess up. And my Chevy is all screwed up.”
“She driving an old yellow Volvo?” Marlin asked.
“Never did see what she was drivin’. By the time I came to my senses, she had hopped the fence again and was gone.”
“What’d she look like?”
Rodney looked down at the table. “Well, that’s why I’m keepin’ this kinda quiet.” He glanced furtively around the diner. “She’s finer than frog hair, boys. Tall and blonde and an absolute knockout. See, I don’t want word to get back to Mabel. She may think I’ve got something going on with this gal.”
Colby finally lost it and erupted in laughter. “You been datin’ your way through the supermodel circuit, Rodney?” he managed to ask.
Rodney tensed, and Marlin held up a hand to quiet them both. “She look anything like that?” Marlin gestured to the front windows of the diner.
Outside, two people had just arrived in a rusty yellow Volvo. The driver was a short, scruffy guy with ragged curly hair, a wispy beard, and a weathered camouflage jacket. The other was a tall blonde woman who would have looked right at home on the cover of Cosmopolitan. She was dressed casually, in a tailored jacket and cream-colored denims.
The residents of Blanco were accustomed to strangers passing through town; after all, Main Street was also U.S. Highway 281. But the majority of visitors looked like they belonged on the streets of Austin or Dallas, whereas this woman looked like a vision from the runways of Milan. When she walked through the front door of the diner, the small crowd went dead quiet.
The couple found a table and, as she prepared to sit down, the woman removed her jacket. She was wearing a tight red turtleneck that hugged a curvy torso. Marlin was embarrassed when one deaf old regular said, a little too loudly, “I’m glad I took my heart medicine this mornin’.” The crowd tittered.
The woman turned, found the old man, and gave him a sly wink, which caused a murmur. “That’s her!” Rodney hissed. “She’s the one who blasted my truck!”
“You sure about that, Rodney?” Marlin sounded skeptical. “I mean, if I go question her, I won’t be making a complete ass of myself?”
“No doubt whatsoever. Look at her, John. You think there’s two of her kind runnin’ around Blanco County?”
“Good point.”
Marlin gave Colby a look that asked, What am I about to get myself into?
Colby responded with a shrug. “Duty calls.”
Marlin rose and crossed the room to the woman’s table. The crowd was silent, enjoying a front-row seat to whatever was about to happen.
“’Mornin’, ma’am…sir.” Marlin nodded to them both.
The woman gave him a poker face. “Good morning, Officer.” The woman appeared so Scandinavian, Marlin was expecting an accent, but there was nothing but a Midwestern twang.
“Ma’am, I was wondering if I could speak to you outside for a minute.”
“Pardon?”
“Well, I just want to ask you a few questions about an incident. I’m the game warden in Blanco County.”
The woman started to reply, but her scruffy companion spoke up, with a bit of an attitude. “We can read the badge on your shirt, sir. Do you mind telling us what this is all about?”
The internal radar Marlin had developed by interviewing thousands of poachers simply said: Asshole. Marlin dealt with all types of people in the course of a season. Most were respectable, law-abiding citizens. But some were belligerent, some were drunk, and still others—like this guy—were self-righteous jerks who thought they were above the law.
Marlin responded with a little attitude of his own: “Sir, at the moment I’m speaking to this young lady. If I have any questions for you, I’ll be sure to let you know.” He kept a firm glare on Mr. Scruffy for a moment. The man gave Marlin a contemptuous sneer, but remained silent.
Marlin turned back to the blonde woman and gestured toward the front door. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind...” The woman remained seated. “I believe I’ll stay right here, but feel free to ask all the questions you want.”
“Fine,” Marlin said, taking a breath. “We’ve received a couple of reports of hunter harassment in the last few days, and you match the description of the woman involved. Now, can you tell me where you were yesterday at about two in the afternoon?”
The woman raised her hand and drummed her fingertips theatrically on her cheek. “Well, let’s see. After lunch we stopped at the grocery store and got a few things, then we filled the car with gas. And then, yes, right at about two o’clock, I was teaching good ol’ Rodney over there the error of his ways.” The woman looked across the room at Rodney and said, in her best cocktail-party voice, “Why, hello, Rodney! Good to see you again, sweetheart.”
The crowd turned and stared at Rodney, who blanched and turned toward the wall.
Marlin was taken aback. Most lawbreakers, when questioned, knew how to do three things: Deny it; deny it; and deny it some more. “Ma’am, are you saying that you were over at Mr. Bauer’s ranch yesterday, and you are responsible for the damage to his truck?”
“What I’m saying is that I was saving the lives of quail, dove, deer, and all the other innocent animals he would have murdered with his shotgun.”
The crowd had grown tense. Someone murmured, “Take her in, John.”
Which was exactly what Marlin was planning to do. “Stand up, please,” he said.
The woman crossed her arms. “I will not.”
Marlin glanced at Mr. Scruffy, who gave him a smug smile. Inside, Marlin groaned. He had had run-ins with anti-hunting activists in the past, and it was almost always a messy business.
“Ma’am…please…stand up.”
“Like hell I will. Why are you here bothering me when you should be out arresting guys like Rodney? They’re the ones carrying guns, blasting everything that moves. And yet I’m the one who’s causing trouble? That’s a joke.”
Mr. Scruffy began to add something, but Marlin hushed him with a stare.
Marlin took a deep breath. He was determined not to let this situation get out of control. “Miss, I’ll ask you once again: Please stand up. Don’t make me use the cuffs.”
“Go to hell.” She grabbed her mug and threw her coffee onto Marlin’s chest. The crowd gasped. This, Marlin thought, isn’t going well at all.
Marlin drove northward on Highway 281 in silence for a few moments, steadily covering the sixteen miles between Blanco and Johnson City. He noticed the sky was clear of clouds now, and the temperature was rapidly climbing. So much for the cold front.
He glanced over at his passenger. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a handcuffed woman in custody. In fact, in nearly twenty years of enforcing hunting and fishing laws, almost all of his dealings had been with men. Simply put, men would do things women would never dream of. Like shoot deer on the side of the highway at night. Throw dynamite into a lake to kill fish. Blast a hundred doves in one day, instead of the legal limit of fifteen. Then they would spin lie after lie to try to escap
e punishment. At least this woman had owned up to her behavior. Too easily, Marlin figured. There had to be something behind it.
“You didn’t have to throw the coffee on me, you know,” Marlin said.
“Pardon me?”
“I was going to arrest you anyway.” He looked over, but her face remained expressionless. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? I mean, my cruiser was sitting right in the parking lot, plain as day. You came in there for a reason.”
“What are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
