by Lisa Preston
Mac had one of those foot pedal-operated vises, so it was easy for him to pop the shoe out, bang a couple times back on the anvil—a monster huge anvil, I noticed—then pop it in the vise again and grind a bit more.
Someday, I’d have one of those vises.
The shoeing absorbed me like a dry sponge and a little spilled milk. Everything about it soaks me up. I noted the way Mac made every hammer swing count.
“Good catching up with you,” I said, by way of parting.
But he wasn’t done with me. “Are you a professional, Rainy?”
Not liking that Mac asked this in a tone that said I wasn’t, I told him right away that I was, I am.
Well, I am. My kit looks better all the time and so do my clients. I’m consistent and I follow the rules, wrote up a price list and another paper with my terms and conditions for all my clients. I’m on time, which is more than can be said for half the shoers in the world, and I’ve got these business cards Guy makes for me.
Mac gave me an eyeball then banged his rounding hammer on a shoe branch, ringing it like a bell against the anvil. “You’ve been around a little bit now. Do you put in to the Injured Farriers Fund?”
After a while, I slammed my flapping jaw back up into the closed position.
Spare cash isn’t something I have, not now, certainly not any other year I’ve been out on my own.
“I’ll do it when I can,” I said.
He nodded. “Good girl.”
What am I, a puppy?
* * *
More anxious than I’d like to admit, I phoned Donna before I drove away from the better cell connections Gris Loup offers.
“It’s Rainy.” I spoke almost on top of her hello. The little plastic phone got sweat slick in my grip.
One or two quiet beats passed then Donna said, “I still feel like I owe you an apology.”
“You’ve apologized.”
“You’re just a young thing.”
I probably wasn’t all that much younger than Arielle Blake, who clearly was into being with a guy who looked aged enough to be out to pasture. Now I felt I had to say again, “I’d never even met your husband.”
Six or seven brain cells whirred with how to slip in something like, hey, as long as we’re accusing each other of stuff . . . In my mind’s eye, I could see the shell casing on the shelf in the Buckeye barn.
“It’s maybe the worst thing about being cheated on,” Donna said now, “that you lose your trust.”
“Ma’am?”
“Rainy, I’m a straight shooter, as honest as your dog. I realize you give and expect integrity too. And I’m just so sorry I doubted you.”
Charley is a pretty solid yardstick by which to measure a thing as grand as honesty. I try to measure up to him myself. A hard flush crept across my face. I had no business doubting Donna. If she said the shotgun was her only gun, then she didn’t have any others. That simple. Relics on her barn shelf were just found objects. Stuff shows up on rangeland, like that squiggly aluminum horseshoe. Inspiration showed up—about dang time. “I’d like to help you, Donna, with that flat tractor tire. I could ride out there with a bunch of cans of fix-a-flat and pump it up. Will the tractor start?”
She chuckled. “The tire’s got to be pulled off, hauled in and repaired or changed out at a tire shop.”
“Why’s that?”
“The tire’s not just flat, it’s punctured. I saw the puncture when I was up close, the day you shod the second half of my string.”
Fixing a puncture sure enough meant the tire would have to be hauled in. The notion of fetching a humongous tire on a heavy rim made me finally realize how odd it was for the Chevignys to have had a tractor north of a ravine that a tractor could not cross.
“How on earth did you ever drive the tractor out there?”
“Years and years ago, we brought it in through Stan Yates’s land, but he don’t allow access no more.”
“That’s too bad.” I wondered what it would take for Yates to reconsider. It would be a heck of a long tractor drive to bring her tractor through the federal land to the Country Store or some trailhead and then load it on a flat bed. The tractor driver would have to haul fuel as well.
A whole new idea on how to fix Donna’s tractor tire started to hatch. Someone with a hauler was going to owe me a favor. I got on my CB and tried for the local loggers who hang on channel fourteen. Someone called Duke said the Delmonts had finished up and headed for home a couple hours back. I could put off my other east end errand, I decided. The Kid, with his Sweeney shoulder, and Donna’s tractor were much more eager things to nail down than any notion of having to testify. I might not yet be so late in checking in with the sheriff that I’d be in actual trouble about it anyways. I left Gris Loup in my rear view and went back to my side of the county.
At the Delmonts’ spread, approaching Earl with my Brilliant Idea turned out to be a whole lot easier than I’d reckoned. Maybe sometimes I build things up in my mind so’s they seem a bigger deal in the meal making than in the actual eating. So to speak.
This plan I’d hatched, well, it was as full of holes as my last client’s horse’s last foot. I didn’t know if the Delmonts’ work-a-day Belgian, Buster, was broke to ride or just how fit he was or how spook-proof or cattle shy or if the Delmonts would go for the favor anyways. Maybe he harbored some ill will toward the Chevignys on account of his sister and all.
I tried to hint. It’s not my big skill. Give me something to shoe, some lameness to find and fix. “What do you think about helping me with doing the widow Chevigny a favor? I mean, yeah maybe there was some partnering around before, I mean . . .” I didn’t quite know what I meant, other than I thought that if he was pinchy over Cameron Chevigny womanizing his sister, he should realize it was none of Donna’s doing and we could all lend her a hand if she’d stand for it.
Anyways, Earl said he’d loan me someone reliable to use a half-day at the Buckeye, said his big Belgian Buster would fit the bill. His wife nodded the notion up one side and down the other, some bit satisfied.
And halfway through thrashing it out, Earl had a brilliant addition to my brain squall, just to keep things good and complicated. But his quick agreement to handing The Kid over to Guy’s pasture—a lame Clydesdale half-breed could be a good enough uncle, help Red oversee Pinto Bean’s weaning—let me know that the Delmonts truly loved that horse.
That’s how it came to pass that Guy and me got us a half-Clydesdale and a favor thrown in to boot. Earl felt he owed me, wanted to do something for me when I offered to give his shoulder-lame horse a home for six or twelve months.
“He handles fine,” Becky added. It was like she was making some sort of peace offering to Donna Chevigny by extending the Delmont resources to the Buckeye, even if it was done through me. Women like Mrs. Earl Delmont, I don’t have them figured, but I know this: they are much, much smarter than most folks realize. Becky Delmont’s smarts made me smile and want to be her friend. I need friends.
She offered me a tea, the glass beaded with condensation. I took it with both hands.
Earl distracted me now with his improvement on my scheme. “So you want to ride my Buster to the back of the Buckeye and have him haul in a punctured tractor tire?”
Nodding, I allowed that was my best plan and I downed the sweet tea in three mega swallows.
Earl rubbed his overall’s chest straps with both hands, like it warmed up his brain instead of his palms. “I might know someone who’s hauling over there with an empty trailer, a super heavy one. He could take Buster.”
The Missus beamed, having read her man’s mind. She was liking this big exchange, too.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Hollis Nunn. Just baled another cutting for her, gonna go pick up a few tons, carry them in to the co-op.”
I nodded. The hayman, Hollis Nunn, who’d partnered with Cameron Chevigny on a rodeo stock business that never got farther after Dragoon showed himself to be a killer bull.
“Between you, me, and the fence post,” Becky said, “if Donna helped him to his death, she wasn’t doing the devil a favor. That man got what he deserved.”
I stared at her but she wasn’t quite looking at me, just shaking her head in disgust at a dead guy. She fair spat out the words as she continued. “Running around on her like he did.”
I edged away a step or two, so as to keep the heebie-jeebies from getting me. I swallowed it all down and turned back to the Mister. And The Kid.
There was still Donna to run my Master Plan by, but we had a nodding acquaintance with the idea already, so I figured it would fly with her. She had her hay cutting deal to work out with the Nunn Finer Hay operation, she’d probably work this tractor-fixing deal out with me.
An image of one thing I needed popped out. It’s a strap hanging in the carport with Guy’s backpacking stuff. I could see it there, dusty, a spider web on one loop of the blue nylon. He used it for tying stuff onto his backpack, like his sleeping bag or some such. Both ends have those quick-snap buckles on them and it’s probably a good ten feet long. It would be perfect for the job I had in mind if I could remember to bring it along.
I wanted to clear it all with Donna Chevigny. I called Guy, happy to hear his voice, and told him my master plan. He said he loved me.
* * *
My last horse of the day was a jumper who got eight nailed and reshod every five weeks at that. And twice in the last cycle, he’d pulled his left front. A sieve for a foot, that’s what he had. I had to be awful careful nailing him. He smelled like fly spray and his coat was slick with conditioner. I kept my mind off the stew that boiled in the back of my skull but as soon as I was loading up my tools, a booger of a thought presented itself for my consideration.
All this effort was to get the tractor tire fixed and it wasn’t until then, trucking home in Ol’ Blue that the whole point of my plan gave me pause. The actual reasoning, the problem all my solutions were aiming to fix. That tire and what Donna’d seen wrong with it.
That tire had a hole in it, which kept the tractor setting in the sun and storms for a year and a half.
One hole, a puncture, in one of the back tires.
A puncture hole.
A puncture.
What if someone had loosed that bull, Dragoon, on Cameron Chevigny and it had charged the tractor, punctured the tire, rolled the tractor, pinning the man for a slow crushing death . . .
But I reckon no one could have done that but the dead man’s wife.
Chapter 13
WAY-TOO MUCH, THAT’S WHAT MELINDA KELLAN knew about my business.
Early that evening, she made herself handy when I stopped at the 24-Fuel to buy diesel. That Melinda digs at me like a chigger. I scratched my arm, tugged on my ponytail and had to pocket my hands to keep them off the bridge of my nose. It didn’t help that I was already bugged beyond belief. I’d called in on the Langstons and heard words—“she’s gone shopping”—that I’ve never before heard about little Abby.
The kiddo was gearing up for time with her surprise mama, okay, but did she have to act like a girl and go shopping? I had a lot of loafing planned for my evening and thought I’d hang with her, cheer her up, and give her a chance to talk. Sure, I had chores and such I should have been doing, but I wasn’t in a good mood about Abby’s situation or Donna’s and I was edgy about the humongous chore I’d lined up with one of the Delmonts’ draft horses. Lazying would have been the cherry on my moping sundae but now I’d never get there. Melinda pulling in for gas in her little piece of crap compact car then shinnying up to me did exactly nothing to settle my mood.
“Heard you’re going back out to the Buckeye ranch,” Melinda started as she stuck the gasoline nozzle in her car’s gullet.
“Heard that, did you?” I was in no mood for Chat. The greasy feel of my boot toes sliding on the concrete’s old petroleum product spills highlighted the environmental mess. I twisted my hair into a stiff stick one way then the other, knowing I’d have to loaf double hard at my next chance to make up for missing out on this evening.
“Guy mentioned it,” she nodded.
“Did he?” At this rate, he wouldn’t be finding a happy fiancée when he hauled himself through the front door.
“I ate at the Cascade tonight and we got to talking.”
That’s just ducky, I thought, wondering plenty of stuff. Like, why she was talking to Guy in the first place and how mad at him I should be for his blabbing. If I beat him home, my Guy, that silly boy, might come home to his very own agitated female.
Diesel pumps slow, foams up. And Ol’ Blue has a ginormous tank, so I was stuck there at the fuel island with Melinda Kellan. I rinsed my lungs out with a couple three breaths and faced her.
“Why’s where I go so interesting to you?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?” And, I thought, quit acting like I’m asking a dumb question.
A real good question is what it was.
“A woman’s dead,” Melinda said. “She went missing—
“Why did Guy get sent to look for her around Keeper Lake?”
“That’s confidential.” Melinda raised her chin. “Some investigatory details are not released because they could compromise a case. Now think about it. Arielle Blake went missing maybe a week before Cameron Chevigny’s tractor rolled. And he’s dead. And I bet you yourself have some doubts about whether or not that rolled tractor was a real accident.”
I wasn’t going to admit that. “You don’t exactly have a dog in this fight.”
“And your dog would be?”
“Well, at least I have a shoeing client who’s been getting, um, you know, besmirched and I work where it happened—” Then I had to trot across the pump islands to catch up to her. “Where you going?” It was a question I asked the back of her waving hands.
Halfway to the 24-Fuel’s convenience store, Melinda turned and glared at me, hands on her hips. “Did you say besmirched?”
I considered on that. “Think so.” Had to nod.
“Jesus.”
Well, besmirched is a word or maybe two or whatever.
Then Melinda gave me a pure challenge. “You think Donna Chevigny had something to do with getting herself widowed?”
“Nope. I surely don’t.” But I didn’t know why I’d settled on the position. I’d been guilty of suspecting Donna myself, but back me into a corner and my gut told me that Donna had nothing to do with ending her husband’s life.
“And how do you think Arielle Blake died?”
A breath shook me. I took a few more, and got it. “Oh. Oh! The sheriff’s detective thought something was hinky between Cameron Chevigny and Arielle Blake?”
Melinda’s voice dropped to something unhearable to anyone five feet away from us, though no one was there. “Her cell phone records showed intimate texts between them. And—”
“Between Arielle Blake and Cameron Chevigny?”
She nodded, barely. “And where they found her body, in that shallow grave—”
“What?”
Melinda shook her head. “I shouldn’t be saying this to you.”
Things were making sense. I nodded. “So, the sheriff’s detective knew Arielle Blake and Cameron Chevigny were having an affair. Are you wondering if Donna killed Arielle?”
“I question everything,” Melinda said.
“When did your detective know about the affair? Not before Arielle went missing?”
“Nah.” Melinda shook her head. “After she went missing, they searched her cell phone records. It’s standard in a missing persons case. And he saw the texts between Arielle and Cameron. The detective had to have a sit down with Stan Yates and say, you know, ‘Hey, your missing girlfriend was having an affair with your neighbor.’ Had to break the guy’s heart.”
I wondered what that conversation had been like. Bu
t, what if, I mean, suppose . . ? I took a breath. “When the detective told Stan Yates that Arielle was having an affair with the neighbor, was that before or after Cameron Chevigny rolled the tractor?”
“Around the same time.”
“Before or after? It matters.”
She pursed her lips. “Because you think that tractor rolling wasn’t an accident? Isn’t there a hill there, where the tractor rolled?”
I moved on. “And wouldn’t your detective have considered that Stan killed his girlfriend because she was cheating on him? And hey, then maybe Yates went out back and opened a gate that turned Dragoon loose?”
“Dragoon?”
“That’s a big dangerous bull on the Buckeye ranch,” I explained, thinking not for the first time that the sheriff’s people ought to be a little handier with the ranching life if they’re going to police horse people. “Yates could have loosed the bull onto Cameron Chevigny out of spite. ’Cause here’s the thing, that tractor has a punctured tire. Believe me, that bull could puncture a tractor tire.”
Melinda pulled her head back as she shook it. “Our detective believed Stan Yates was innocent, had nothing to do with Arielle Blake’s disappearance. Maybe he’s a great actor but he said Yates was shocked about the affair. Yates just wanted to find Arielle.”
“But then Cameron Chevigny rolls his tractor before your detective could—”
“He suspended the case after Chevigny’s death.”
And then I really got it. “Oh!”
Melinda gave a knowing nod.
“He really thought Arielle Blake’s disappearance was suspicious? She could have just walked away. I mean, turns out she didn’t but—”
“Disappearances are always potentially suspicious. We just don’t say that to the family or to the newspapers.”
“So if the sheriff’s department always thought that she might have been murdered then they looked at her boyfriend—”
“And everyone else in her love life.”
“Huh.” Probably not many other people knew what the sheriff’s department knew. “Oh, wow. So your detective, the guy in the suit, he thought . . . Cameron killed Arielle Blake?”
