Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  “Cori Elena took it,” I said dully.

  “She says no.”

  I bit my tongue. There was nothing I would put beyond Cori Elena. Ambitious, conniving, plying her sex to get what she wanted—lying could easily fall into her repertoire. While I was genuinely fond of her daughter, Quinta, I had little use for the woman who had brought her into the world. But as long as Martín was enamored of her, I knew better than to get in the middle of it.

  “Martín, this is really serious. If Cori Elena has the Orantez money, or even if these people think she does, then we could all be in deep caca.”

  “I know.”

  “Quinta, your father, me, you. These people will stop at nothing.”

  Martín looked miserable.

  “You have the right to know that.” He nodded at the clipping. “But Cori Elena doesn't have his money.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just know, chiquita, that's all.”

  Briefly, I wondered how he could have that kind of trust in Cori Elena. Why would she tell him if she had the money? This was the same woman who only a few short months before had never even told him he had fathered a daughter, then when she'd been found out, had fabricated a huge story about the girl being brain dead. With Cori Elena, every day was a surprise. Unfortunately I would not put murder and embezzlement—even if the money was dirty—past her.

  “She can't go back to Mexico,” Martín said.

  I didn't have to ponder this. We'd already been through it many times before. Since the Mexican authorities were only interested in questioning Cori Elena, she was in no danger of extradition. But the minute she stepped across the border she'd be nailed and more than likely be thrown into jail. Definitely not a good place to be.

  “You're sure she's not in contact with anyone down there?” I asked. When I had agreed to let Cori Elena stay at the ranch, my one condition had been that she not tell anyone where she was living. Her father, Alberto, who was retired and still living at the Double A Drag Ranch up in Oracle, was the only member of her family who knew where she was. While she'd been to Mesa a few times to visit her sisters, they only communicated with her through their father. I was fairly sure the bad guys could cut out Alberto's tongue and he would never divulge that his youngest daughter was living at the Vaca Grande.

  Martín stood up, as did I. I handed him back the newspaper clipping and he gave me a hard hug. “This is a heads-up, chiquita, that's all.”

  As I watched him walk out, I prayed he was right.

  3

  “WE'D LOVE TO, BUT WE'RE LEAVING FOR A HORSEBACK TRIP Friday morning,” Abby said, declining my invitation for them to join us for the weekend roundup. “J.B.'s starting another school next week, so he promised me this trip before he gets tied down with all of that.”

  “Sounds fun.” I cradled the telephone against my shoulder and thumbed through the mail. “Where you headed?”

  “Some place called the Baboquivaris.” She butchered the name of the mountain range southwest of Tucson. “We're taking the horses and this will give me a chance to really ride hard, Trade. J.B. says we'll be doing at least ten miles a day!”

  Thinking June an odd time for a camping trip and that ten miles on horseback wasn't really all that far, I wisely kept my mouth shut. “Just be sure he doesn't ride you hard and put you away wet,” I cracked a weak honeymoon joke.

  Abby laughed. “Oh, I'm counting on it.”

  By the time we hung up, I was convinced that Abby thought that this camping trip was the magic elixir that would turn her into a real cowgirl. Ah, if it were that easy. Still, a few more days in the saddle could only improve her riding skills.

  By Saturday morning we'd gathered the rest of the cattle into the holding pasture. We'd spent the rest of Saturday & Sunday ear-tagging the heifers, cutting the young bulls, and earmarking and inoculating all the calves. Since I like to gather my cattle throughout the year, spring roundup isn't quite as wild as it is on some outfits. My calves have seen people on horseback before and aren't too concerned when someone other than their mama asks them to move.

  The other nice thing about spring roundup is that after our work is done, other than the calves we may have missed, most of the mother-calf pairs get to be turned back out on pasture. Unlike fall, there's no bawling of the cows as they walk the fence lines searching for their calves.

  By sundown Sunday the holding pasture and corrals were empty and the ranch was quiet once again.

  It was late Monday morning and I was working in my office at the old stage stop a mile from the ranch house when Jake Hatcher's pickup pulled in. Hatcher, our local brand inspector, has been hanging around the Vaca Grande a lot lately, so while I wasn't particularly surprised to see him, I was startled that he stopped to see me.

  Although Jake was old enough to be her father, he and Cori Elena had become good friends. He had dated her aunt years ago, so Martín's girlfriend had known him since childhood. But now that relationship had every indication of blossoming into something more. If Martín had noticed anything fishy, he hadn't said anything. As for me, I saw the whole thing as a keg of dynamite waiting for someone to light the fuse.

  When I left my evaporative-cooled office, the dry, hot June air smacked me in the face. Although I was wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and shorts, I was sweating before I reached Jake's pickup.

  He stepped out of his truck and tipped his Stetson in my direction. “Morning, Trade.”

  “Jake, what brings you out this way?”

  “Have you heard about the accident?”

  My stomach sank. Accident is never a good word.

  “Abigail Van Thiessen was found dead yesterday morning.”

  “Dead?” Jesus, had she fallen off her horse again?

  “Drowned. They found her in some stock tank south of town.”

  “The Baboquivaris.”

  “Say, that's right. She and J.B. were on some kind of camp deal down there. Apparently they whooped it up pretty good Saturday night and J.B. woke up Sunday morning and found her in the tank.”

  “And she drowned?” With the difference in their ages and bank accounts, it didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to think the obvious.

  “Well, that's what they're calling it so far. The medical examiner's doing an autopsy. That's required you know, on all accidental deaths.”

  I nodded. I knew a little about autopsies. While most of my private investigation business is the boring stuff— skip traces, domestic squabbles, insurance investigation, workman's comp—I did know about autopsies. The A word had reared its ugly head before. So far, thankfully, I've not had to watch one being done.

  “How's J.B.?”

  “Haven't seen him. Can't say.”

  We talked a while longer and then Jake took off. I wasn't surprised to see him turn left toward ranch headquarters instead of heading back out to the highway.

  I tried to go back to work after that, but my mind kept drifting to Abigail Van Thiessen and her young cowboy husband. I'd just seen them both last week and she'd seemed so happy. And J.B. had been very solicitous of her. Yet how in the hell could a person drown in a stock tank? I'd heard it happen to animals but never to a person.

  Finally I decided that sending out client bills could wait another day and I left the office.

  I stopped at home only long enough to throw on a skirt and retrieve a poppyseed cake from the freezer on the screened porch. Then I headed up to the Brave Bull Ranch.

  Passing through our little burg of La Cienega I headed up Highway 77 to Oracle. I turned off the highway and dropped my speed through the business district before hanging a right on the old Mt. Lemmon Road. Past the Environmental Research Center I hung another right onto dirt. I passed the American Flag Ranch, which was now a trailhead for a segment of the Arizona Trail, and drove for another mile or so before finding the huge wrought iron sign with a silhouette of a bull rider making a ride. Underneath in huge block wrought iron lettering were the words THE BRAVE BULL.
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  Scrub oaks lined the driveway and as I drove in I could tell that I wasn't the first to hear the news of Abigail's death. Mercedeses, Cadillacs and shiny new Lexuses mingled with battered pickup trucks in the paved parking lot. Obviously both Abby's and J.B.'s friends were paying their respects to the bereaved husband.

  When I stepped out of Priscilla, my beloved Dodge diesel pickup, the desert air blasted me again. Although Oracle is higher than La Cienega, it was still hot. Damn, but how I dislike June. Absolutely my least favorite month in the desert. The heat is just relentless with no hint of rain. Everything seems to come to a standstill and even the animals don't move around much, unless it's at night.

  By the time I got to the front door, I was damp and clutching the frozen cake to my bosom in an effort to cool myself down.

  A maid, dressed in loose cotton pants and a purple polo shirt embroidered with “The Brave Bull” and the same bucking bull logo I'd seen at the entrance, let me into the refrigerated comfort of the huge remodeled adobe house. I handed off the poppyseed cake to her and passed through the foyer into the great room.

  It was incredible. A massive stone fireplace was at one end and over it was what I was sure was an original oil painting by Kenneth Riley. If it had been my house, I would have found a safer place for the expensive oil than a site where it would be threatened by fireplace soot.

  The walls were peppered with more original art, all of it Western-themed, ranging from the stock two cow ponies tied in front of the little adobe with smoking fire-place, to Plains Indians on buffalo hunts. There was also a huge mounted Brahma bull head, and on the wall next to the dining area, a formal portrait of Abigail Van Thiessen in her earlier life.

  The furniture, like the room, was oversized with a good deal of Molesworth, lots of leather and studs and even a giant chair made of antlers.

  There were probably twenty people in the room, most of them looking as though they'd come from Abby's walk of life, and I didn't know any of them.

  One man stood out, as easily as did the Riley painting. A huge black man, built like a linebacker, with short salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing a long white robe and had a large diamond earring in his left ear and a heavy gold chain with an immense gold crucifix hanging around his neck.

  Choco-Willie candy was very much in evidence, as bowls of the foil-wrapped chocolate-covered caramel clowns graced several of the tables.

  A small gray-haired Mexican man with a tiny puff of a mustache came by with a tray of soft drinks. I took a Diet Coke.

  “Hey, Trade.”

  I turned to see Lolly MacKenzie. Lolly came from a ranching family in Sonoita, Arizona, and my cousin Bea and I had known her since we were children, although she was quite a bit older than we were. Her father, like mine, had come from the East years ago. Although hers had come with a ton more money. Some said that his fortune was somehow connected to that of Engine Charley Wilson of General Motors fame. Besides ranching, Lolly and I had something else in common. We were both orphans.

  “Isn't this a terrible thing?” Lolly asked.

  “Totally unexpected,” I agreed. “They were just down at the ranch gathering cattle last week.”

  “And Abby and I were supposed to go to the Miraval spa for a day of beauty this week. During J.B.'s bull thing, you know.”

  The way she said it I could tell that Lolly didn't think much of J.B.'s bull riding school.

  “Oh right, that was starting this week.” My eyes scanned the room, but there was no sign of J.B. Calendar, or anyone resembling a real cowboy. “Where is he, do you know?”

  “Haven't seen him.”

  We made small talk for a while longer. When someone diverted Lolly's attention, I slipped across the room toward the dining end, figuring that the kitchen couldn't be far behind. My whole point in coming here was to pay my respects to J.B. and I needed to do that and then get back to work.

  My instincts were right and I slipped through the swinging doors and found myself in a massive French country kitchen. A small squat woman with Brillo pad gray hair was spreading what looked like ham salad on tiny pieces of bread. She was wearing a long black broomstick skirt with a Brave Bull polo shirt and thin cotton gloves that were stained with the sandwich spread. She looked startled to see me.

  “Can I get out through there?” I pointed to a door.

  She smiled. “Sure.”

  That was the extent of our conversation as I slipped out of Abigail Van Thiessen's house and back into the June inferno.

  4

  I WALKED PAST SEVERAL GUEST HOUSES TUCKED INTO THE scrub oaks and manzanita.

  It didn't take an investigator to figure out where I'd find J.B. By the time I got to Double Indemnity's pipe corral I was damp with sweat. I found Calendar and two other cowboys—one a full head shorter than J.B.—standing under a large oak tree. Although there was a nice rectangular wrought iron patio table with six chairs nestled under the oak, each cowboy had a leg propped up on the pipe, their butts to me as they studied the Brahma bull. J.B. and the tall cowboy sported perfectly round white circles on the right cheek pockets of their Wrangler's; permanent imprints left by their Copenhagen cans.

  Double Indemnity, oblivious to either the cowboys or the hordes of flies that buzzed about his massive body, stood sleeping in the far corner of the pen.

  I walked up just as the tall cowboy spit a thin stream of brown tobacco juice into the dust.

  Taking a place on the far side of Calendar I draped my arms over the rail and placed a sandaled foot on the bottom pipe. He turned to look at me, but it was impossible to see his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses.

  “Thanks for coming, hon.” He squeezed my arm.

  “I'm really sorry.” I felt like a dolt. But then I always do when someone dies. I mean, what could I say? It was for the best? God's will? I hope she left you in her will? I've learned over the years that a simple “I'm sorry” is best. No sense philosophizing or preaching or trying to make sense out of death.

  “In a fucking stock tank,” J.B. said.

  I kept quiet. I knew he would rerun the events of the weekend over and over again, both aloud and in the dark hours of the night when he struggled with sleep.

  “Funny thing is she swam like a fish. Like a god-damned fish.”

  The tall cowboy spit another stream out, an inch or so from his earlier deposit. Briefly, I wondered if he was aiming. “God's will, it was just God's will, J.B.” The spitting philosopher offered what I would not.

  We stood there, staring into the corral at the stupid Brahma bull that ignored us. It was almost as though we were meditating or something and I suppose in a way we were. It was the cowboy way to stare off at stock or the horizon, or draw circles in the dirt while contemplating the affairs of life.

  “She really wanted to go on a camping trip, Trade. She'd never slept out under the stars before.” There was a catch in his voice and when I glanced over at him I saw a thin trail of tears slip out from underneath his shades. “Friday night was perfect, just perfect.”

  I wasn't surprised. According to Jake Hatcher, Abby had probably died sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Briefly, I wondered what they had done Saturday night.

  “We had a great ride on Saturday, cooked steaks. But Sunday …” He shook his head. “I woke up—” J.B. was having a hard time talking. “And she wasn't there. I mean she just disappeared. I thought maybe she'd gone for a walk or something.” He wiped his wet face with his sleeve. “The horses were still on the picket line, so I knew she hadn't gone for a ride or anything like that.”

  I stared at Double Indemnity, who was now awake and nipping at his flank in an effort to dislodge the flies gathered there. Funny how flies don't seem to mind the blazing sun.

  “I yelled and whistled for her and when she didn't answer, I started to get worried. The thought occurred to me that maybe the Indians had taken her.”

  Indians? J.B. had a great imagination. While the eastern slope of the Baboquivaris was
government and private property, the west end belonged to the Tohono O'odham nation. Baboquivari Peak is sacred to them, for it is here that I'itoi brought the People into this world. Legend suggests that after he had created the animals and the People, and raised a little hell, that he'd retired back into a cave deep below the peak. Some of the People still believe that I'itoi lives in the cave and when he's needed he'll come out again and mingle with the common folk.

  As far as I knew though, in spite of their reverence for their mountain, the Tohono O'odham have never kidnapped anyone, and even the most egregious trespasser has gotten off with only a citation and a fine.

  “Were you on the reservation?” I asked gently.

  J.B. looked at me like I'd lost my mind. “Hell, no. Do I look that stupid to you?”

  I let it pass.

  He retrieved the Copenhagen from his rear pocket, opened the lid and pinched a big wad, which he then crammed into his cheek. His tongue lolled around in his mouth for a minute packing the tobacco before he continued speaking.

  “We were camped about a quarter mile from the stock tank.”

  This admission didn't surprise me. It was the code of the West. If you camped near a water hole you made sure you were at least a quarter of a mile away. On public lands, the Game and Fish Department demanded this buffer. The reasoning was that cattle and wildlife would be spooked from getting water if people were camped too close.

  “So I threw a bridle on one of the horses and went looking for Abby. I don't know why I didn't think of checking that damned tank first.”

  I reached under my blouse and pressed my palm against my cold, wet belly, marveling, not for the first time, about the efficiency of the human evaporative cooling system.

  “And that's how I found out what happened to Abby, when I rode up on that goddamned tank.” J.B. was really crying now.

  I patted him on the back and found the middle cowboy's hand also there. We glanced at each other over J.B.'s spine.

  “I pushed that pony into the water and got to her and jumped off him and she was just there floating, face down.” J.B. was trying to talk between the gulps of air he was sucking in. “I swam as hard as I could with her in my arms and took her to the bank.”