“Let’s get us some coffee,” Larson said, as if all the answers to the world’s problems would be solved that way.
As we walked toward the front door of the Broken Spur Saloon, I saw Victor Sanchez’s pickup truck parked around the side, and another vehicle I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see Christine Prescott’s car. Larson held the door open for me and we went inside.
“How about right over here,” Larson said, and led the way toward a dark booth on the opposite side of the room from the bar. We slid in, and before my hat settled beside me on the vinyl seat, Victor Sanchez appeared at the table.
“Hello, Victor. Just coffee, please,” I said, and without response or even indication that he had heard, Sanchez shifted his gaze to Cliff Larson.
“The same.”
Sanchez spun on his heel and left, hospitality overflowing. He had his reasons not to like us much.
“So, what’s the ‘something else’?” I asked. Larson turned sideways and stretched his lanky frame, letting a boot hang off the end of the bench.
“I got to go to Illinois here pretty quick.”
“What’s in Illinois?”
Cliff took a deep breath. He patted his pocket, and pulled out the remains of the cigarette pack. It was flat. He crumpled it and tossed it in the ashtray, and pulled a fresh one out of the side pocket of his jeans—already pre-crumpled. “Well, my ma’s not doin’ too good. Had a stroke last week, and Dad, he can’t manage. He tried.” Larson peeled the foil off and rapped the first butt out of the pack. “Nah, he can’t do it. So I need to run me on back there for a while.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your folks, Cliff. I didn’t know you were from Illinois.”
“Yep. Hell of a good place to be from.” He grinned lamely. “And it looks like I’m headed back that way, too. Ain’t none too happy about that.”
“That’s why you called earlier? Whenever it was?”
He nodded and sat back while Sanchez placed the two cups of coffee on the table between us. “Nothing else, Victor,” I said pleasantly. “Thanks for asking.” I grinned at him, and that just made matters worse. If I’d been a young sprout, he’d probably have tossed me out on my ear. As it was, his upper lip just twitched a bit.
After he’d left, Cliff Larson leaned forward. “Here’s what I’m thinkin’. Come election, you’re gonna hang it up, right?”
“Sure enough. November eighth. That’s twelve-oh-one AM this coming Wednesday.”
“Going traveling?”
I frowned. “No, I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Not going to spend two weeks at each one of the kids’? What, you got four of ’em. That eats up eight weeks, right?”
“I don’t think so. If they want to come here to visit, I’ve got plenty of room.” I knew damn well what he was getting at, so I said with a grin, “Get to the point, Cliff.”
“I want you to fill in for me.”
I laughed. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Now you think on it for a minute.”
“It won’t take even that long, Cliff. Why would I want to do that, anyway? The New Mexico Livestock Board can hire its own inspectors. Get some young buck fresh out of school at Las Cruces. They don’t need me. And on the other side of the same coin, I can’t imagine that they’d want me, either.”
Cliff Larson took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “You think on that for a minute,” he repeated.
“I already did.”
“Here’s the problem,” he said, ignoring my response. “I’m flyin’ out the later part of next week. There ain’t no time to bring somebody new in and train ’em from the ground up. But I could get together with you and show you the ropes.”
“I wouldn’t know what the hell to do, either.”
“Sure you would. And it’s the kind of work you’d like, Bill. Most of the time, it’s outdoors. Drive around, talk with people. Check brand scabs, lip tattoos, paperwork. It’s no big deal. Write a few permits, collect fees, turn ’em in. It’s who you know, most of the time—and hell, you know this county and the folks in it every bit as good as me.”
“About the last thing I’d want to do is jump from one job right into another,” I said.
“Why the hell not?” Larson laughed. “What the hell else you going to do? Sit around and read until your arteries crust over?”
“That sounds sort of pleasant.”
“Shit. You know that ain’t true. You want to be out smellin’ the sage and breathin’ that good air.” He dragged deeply on the cigarette.
I didn’t respond to his pastoral image, and Cliff shook his head with impatience. “You ain’t ready to park it,” he said. “Anyways, it might not be for too long. Soon as I can square things away back home, I’ll be back. Hell, it might only be for a week or two. You never know.”
“Right. That’s how these things start,” I said. “I know how it works.” Draining the last of the not very inspired coffee, I set the cup down and added, “Do we still need to drive to Newton?”
“Yep, we do,” Larson said. “There’s a few things you need to see.”
Chapter Sixteen
From the Broken Spur Saloon, there was no easy way to reach Newton, a simple thirty-five miles due north as the crow flies. County Road 14 snaked up that way from its intersection with State 56, a stone’s throw from Victor Sanchez’s saloon, but if we drove north on CR14 fast enough so that we wouldn’t spend all afternoon eating dust, we’d be pissing blood instead. The road was bad in spots, awful in others. Sometimes it was little more than a rock-strewn slash gouged through the rimrock by the county’s battered road grader.
Instead, we drove the twenty-three miles back to Posadas, then headed out of town again, this time northwest on State 78. As we passed the airport, Larson actually goosed the pickup up to the speed limit for a while, and less than an hour after our last sip of coffee at the Broken Spur Saloon, we turned right on 0910, out of Posadas County and eastbound to the hamlet of Newton.
In the center of Newton, across from the small convenience store, Our Lady of Sorrows Church, and the cinder-block community center, we turned south on a wide, paved street that had probably suckered in more than one tourist. Wide and paved for a hundred yards or so, it narrowed to gravel, still smooth and well crowned. Newton had grown by a couple of mobile homes since summer, and a run of new chain-link fencing enclosed the yards along the shoulder of the road.
Two miles farther, we passed the small metal sign that announced the Posadas County line, and gravel gave way to two ruts worn in the prairie. Another sign cheerfully announced that COUNTY MAINTENANCE ENDS.
“Now this here leads us over to the stock pens,” Larson said, ever the thoughtful tour guide. We turned onto an even worse two-track and ahead I could see the corrals, stark against the cholla, greasewood, and scant bunchgrass. Maybe planning someday to corral angry Cape buffalo, Miles Waddell had used railroad ties liberally.
Larson let the truck roll to a stop fifty yards from the corral where the two-track split, one branch leading to the loading chute, the other toward a windmill. “Let’s hoof it from here,” he said.
With no mesas to block it, the wind was hard and cold, blowing in from Arizona. I pulled my jacket collar up around my neck and scrunched my hat down hard on my head. Before we’d walked twenty paces, I heard a vehicle.
“That would be Waddell,” Larson said. We watched the big pickup jounce toward us, wind scudding the dust in swirls through the cholla. He parked next to the state truck. Larson raised a hand in greeting. Two men rode with Waddell, and they all piled out, ducking their heads against the wind so they wouldn’t end up chasing their hats through the cholla.
“Hello, Miles,” Larson said as the trio approached. “I expect you know Sheriff Gastner.”
“’Spect I do,” Waddell said, and extended his hand. “How’s everything goin’ with you? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Things are going okay,” I replied. His grip was firm, the skin of his ha
nd rough as an old fence rail. It wasn’t the wiry, redheaded Waddell who interested me just then. I eyed the two men with him. The taller one, going to fat and bundled against the growing November nip in an expensive parka, eyed first Waddell, then me, then Cliff Larson, as if waiting to be told what to do. I had either met him, or seen him a time or two, but couldn’t bring his name to mind.
The other man was shorter than Waddell, a compact bull of a man with a broad face and heavy features. He wore a black baseball cap without logo or insignia pulled down on his head so that the bill was a couple of fingers above the bridge of his nose, military style.
Waddell reached out a hand toward his companions, pointing at the taller of the two first. “Sheriff, this here is Mark Denton. He’s one of my partners.” I shook hands with Denton, and he pumped my hand eagerly. He didn’t look much like a rancher. “Mark lives over in Animas,” Waddell added. “And this is Ed Johns.”
“Mr. Johns,” I said. His grip was perfunctory along with the slightest of nods, but as if an electrical switch had been thrown, the moment our hands touched I remembered who he was. “You still with Catron County?” I knew that he wasn’t, but didn’t recall the circumstances of his parting company with that Sheriff’s Department.
“Nope,” he replied, and let it go at that.
“So what did you find out?” Waddell asked. He thrust his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and looked expectantly first at the livestock inspector and then at me. When Larson’s answer was too long in coming, he added, “You know, I talked to Kirk Payne, over in Broadus. We was over there, just a bit ago.”
“And what did he have to say?” Larson asked.
“Well, I think it’d be worth your while to talk to him.” Waddell nodded. “He says that Dale Torrance stopped there Friday morning early, and filled up with diesel. He was pullin’ a livestock trailer, and Payne says that it looked like the kid was pullin’ a load.”
I frowned. “Dale Torrance? And pulling a load of what?”
“Well, cattle, I suppose,” Waddell said, as if the matter were settled.
Cliff Larson glanced at me. “I stopped by the store in Broadus yesterday, askin’ around. Payne told me the same thing. He says it was a load of calves that Dale had.” With a shrug, he added, “Can’t picture young Dale havin’ anything to do with stealin’ stock, but stranger things have happened, I guess.”
“Now wait just a goddamn minute,” I said, and I could feel my blood pressure rising by leaps and bounds. I didn’t like people pussy-footing around me, feeding me only what they thought I should know. I took hold of Cliff Larson’s sleeve. “Show me these tracks.” The others started to follow, and I held up my hand. “Stay put, gents. Give us a few minutes before we track all over every goddamn thing in the neighborhood.”
It wasn’t the truck and trailer tracks that concerned me. Blown sand might yield a track cast that might be good enough for a bluff, but not for court. I held my tongue until we were sheltered by the mass of the corral and loading chute.
“See, he backed right in here,” Larson said. “Pretty clear. Last set of tracks right there.” He bent down. “Nothin’ on top. That’s the last set.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure enough. Now listen. What the hell is going on here? You’ve got a whole bushel of things you aren’t telling me, Cliff. What’s this about Dale? What other little surprises do you have going here?”
Larson sighed and glanced back at the three men, now lounging against the front of their pickup. “Kirk Payne says that he saw Dale with a stock trailer, loaded, early Friday morning, right around six o’clock. He was fillin’ up with diesel. Sixty bucks’ worth in cash.”
“And so?”
“I happened to talk to Herb Torrance on Friday, just kind of casual like. Saw him downtown, as a matter of fact. At the bank. He was goin’ in as I was comin’ out. I asked him if they were plannin’ to move any stock, told him that I was goin’ out of town for a few days, and if they needed anything, maybe it’d be good to catch me before I left.”
“And Herb said they weren’t,” I added.
“That’s right.”
“Was this before you knew about the theft?”
“Sure enough was.”
“So you hadn’t talked to Kirk Payne, either.” Larson shook his head slowly. “Did you talk to Dale since then?”
“Not yet.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Dale would have needed a permit from
you, wouldn’t he? If he had cattle trailered as far away as Broadus…and he was obviously heading somewhere else, since he was fueling up.”
“Yeah, he would.”
“But neither he nor his father received a travel permit from you in the past few days?”
“Nope.”
“Have you talked to Herb since?” I asked, and Larson just shook his head again. Try as hard as I might, I couldn’t see an easy way around it. Maybe there was a logical explanation, but I found myself stalled. “Trouble is, Cliff, we both know Herb Torrance too well.”
“Now that’s a fact.”
The epitome of the hardworking, law-biding rancher, Herb Torrance made a living as best he could in tough, hardscrabble country—and kept his good humor at the same time. I counted him a good friend. We’d had a few hard times with his eldest son, Patrick, a couple years before—woman trouble that had blindsided the boy into making ill-considered mistakes. That had worked itself out.
Dale Torrance was nineteen, I knew, and had decided to work at home, despite his father’s encouragement to take a couple years and see if university life held any attraction. I knew that the boy loved the rodeo circuit, and chasing the silver buckles would keep him flat broke most of the time.
With my hands in my pockets I faced into the breeze, taking a deep breath as if I could smell answers on the wind. “What else?” I asked.
Cliff Larson looked down at the ground and scuffed dust with the toe of his right boot. “The calves are in Lawton, Oklahoma. I know that much.”
“Jesus Christ, Cliff,” I snapped.
“Okay, now here’s the deal,” Larson said, holding up both hands as if to ward off blows. “It don’t take no rocket scientist to figure this one out.” One hand froze in the air and he stopped, taking time to think. “If it was Dale, and I got no reason to think that Kirk Payne wouldn’t know, then he was eastbound with those calves. Broadus is ten miles from here more or less. Gettin’ fuel was just somethin’ Dale didn’t think about. So he goes east.”
“And there’s millions of choices where he could go,” I said. “Why Lawton?”
Cliff grinned. “I learned over time that if there’s a way a relative could be involved, it’s worth it to check that out first. Families just kind of work that way.”
“And there’s Torrance relatives in Lawton?”
“Nope, but there is in Hulen, just a bit south. I called an inspector friend of mine over that way, and asked him to do some checking around. He says word has it that there’s a dealer or two around Lawton who might be persuaded to bend the rules a little.”
“Take stolen cattle, you mean?”
Larson nodded. “He checks to see if there’s any critters that he might call into question, and sure enough. He checks one of the stockyards and finds himself about eighteen head of yearlings with the Waddell brand. That simple.”
“Who is the relative that lives in Hulen?”
“That’s Herb Torrance’s younger sister. She’s married to some farm equipment dealer over that way.”
I heard voices and looked back to see Miles Waddell and his two buddies walking toward us. Apparently their patience was running thin.
“The cattle are being held in Lawton, then?” I said.
“Yep.”
“What’s the timetable for Miles getting them back?”
“Well,” Cliff said, and hesitated. “The livestock is impounded, all right. But feed bills run high. Authorities want us to move pretty quick. They don’t want to baby-sit a herd o
f cattle if they can help it.”
“I’m sure of that. I wonder what the hell Dale thought he was doing.”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Larson said. “I ain’t got that far yet.”
I smiled at him and shook my head in exasperation. “And you’re taking off to Illinois?”
“Got to,” he said. “No way around it.”
“Around what?” Miles Waddell said as the three men reached us.
“Miles,” I said. “we’ve got a lead that we’re following up. Give us until Monday, all right?”
“Shit, by that time, my stock will be a thousand miles down in Mexico, brands changed to read ‘Lazy Runnin’ Mex’ or some damn thing.”
“I don’t think so, Miles.”
“Well, I tell you what. “We was going down to talk with the Torrance boy. That sure as hell seems like the place to start.”
“Forget it, Miles.”
He looked sharply at me, catching the tone in my voice. “Listen, Sheriff,” he said, “eighteen head of stock don’t come cheap. I ain’t going to stand around with my head up my ass, hopin’ that those calves will kick the boards out of whatever pen they’re bein’ held in and wander their way on home.”
“You’ve got a business to run, Miles. Why don’t you just do that, and let Cliff and me do what we’re paid to do.”
“Look, I’m just sayin’…”
“I know exactly what you’re saying, Miles. This isn’t a hundred years ago. Stealing cattle is a felony. So is transporting livestock across a state line without proper permits.” I thrust my hands in my coat pockets and regarded Waddell for a moment. “And so is playing vigilante.”
His eyebrows shot up at that. “Look, Miles,” I said. “We’ve got us a royal mess here, a royal screwup. You just give us time to straighten things out. It’s not going to accomplish anything to have you three gentlemen bust in on Herb Torrance and his boy with this situation. Let us talk with them. You’ll get your cattle back. Guaranteed. All right?”
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