The City of Rocks

by Don Travis

“No one saw a stranger on the property?”

  She shook her head.

  “That argues it was an inside job. Could Luis have put it there?”

  “No! He wouldn’t do that to me. He and Maria have been with us for years.”

  “I understand he’s the only one you allow in the duck pens.”

  “The other hands shortcut through them occasionally. They catch hell if I see them, but they do it when they’re in a hurry to reach the house from the corral behind the pens. Besides, it wouldn’t be hard for an outsider to sneak onto the property.”

  “You didn’t hear the birds put up a racket?”

  “They don’t always, especially if you move slowly and quietly. And the part of the shed where the note was pinned wasn’t inside the fence with the ducks.”

  Millicent admitted both Luis and Maria could read and write English but insisted neither could have been responsible for the note. O’Brien offered to take writing samples from everyone on the ranch.

  “Including Bert and Mrs. Muldren,” I said. The deputy gave me a penetrating look. “To properly exclude them. It’ll save time later in the investigation.” I didn’t know how much—if anything—Millicent had shared with the deputy about the bet or the insurance.

  “Makes sense, but Bert’s not gonna be writing anything for a day or two. Leastways, nothing that’s gonna look like his writing.”

  “I’m sure you can find samples somewhere in his desk.” I reread the note. “Millicent, this tells you to meet the writer at the City at noon. How many people know about this other City of Rocks?”

  “A lot of people, I guess. Probably everybody in the Boot Heel.”

  “I heard about it as a little kid,” O’Brien said.

  “Millicent, you lied to me,” I said. “Again. You denied being contacted.”

  “I know, and I apologize. But the writer said not to tell anyone.”

  “So you just rode off to meet a possible duck thief threatening bodily harm to someone close to you without a thought for your own safety?”

  Her eyes widened. “Why would anyone harm me?”

  “That depends on why the duck was stolen in the first place.” I held up the glassine envelope containing the note. “So this is why you wrecked Bert’s meeting?”

  She dropped onto one of the big sofas in the living room. Her boots sank into the thick bearskin rug. O’Brien and I took the couch opposite her.

  “Yes, it is. I encouraged Bert to take the night off in Deming. Usually I disapprove, but I halfway hoped he’d get drunk and oversleep. But you shook him up with your news, and he came back later that night. Before he did, I’d already called around trying to cancel the meeting. I managed to reach some people, but the rest were either out of touch and didn’t get my message, or else ignored it.”

  “And I walked in on the meeting just in time to give you an excuse to back out of cooperating. What would you have done if I hadn’t appeared?”

  “I’d have found a way.”

  At that moment a tall, bespectacled man in his early fifties walked into the room. Millicent introduced him as Dr. Mullens, the family’s longtime physician. He acknowledged me briefly.

  “The EMTs left,” he told Millicent. “I wanted Bert to go to the hospital up in Lordsburg overnight, but the mule-headed son of a gun refused to go. I practically told him he was gonna die if he didn’t, but he just dug in his heels. Reminds me of his father. Ren was just as pigheaded.” After venting, he turned professional. “Mud, Bert’s not badly hurt but he’s lost some blood. Not enough to worry about. He’s got a mild concussion, so I don’t want him to sleep too long until his headache goes away. He can nap off and on, but he needs to wake up now and then to keep from falling into a coma. I left some pain medication.”

  “What’s the extent of his wounds?” O’Brien asked.

  The doctor placed an index finger just back of his left temple. “There’s some damage in this area. Don’t think the bullet actually struck him, but came close enough to knock him silly. Might have hit his head on a rock when he fell. That would account for the blood. Kinda strange, really. Mud said he was walking toward her and suddenly stopped cold in his tracks and looked off to his left. I’m no expert on trajectories, but it looks to me like it wouldn’t have done more than singe his haircut if he’d kept on walking. Wonder why he stopped?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “I haven’t questioned him. He hasn’t exactly been coherent until now.”

  “You saying someone missed him on purpose?” O’Brien asked.

  The doctor pulled a face. “I don’t know what I’m saying. That’s not my field. It’s yours.”

  “I gotta go question him, Doc. I need some answers.”

  “Take it easy on him, O’Brien. Keep your questions to a minimum. You can always talk to him tomorrow. You oughta be out looking for the shooter, anyway.”

  “Got a man out there now. And three of the Lazy M hands to boot. They found the spot where the bastard fired from. It wasn’t in the City, by the way. Off to the east.”

  “Mexican?” Mullens asked.

  “Not necessarily,” O’Brien said. “If it was me done the shooting, I’d hightail it for the border. None of our lawmen’s gonna cross over there. I’d just hike up the fence a spell and reenter the US wherever I wanted.”

  “Damned fortified fence,” the doctor said. “Either build the blessed thing from one end of the border to the other or else don’t build it at all. It just herds the stampede right at us.”

  I suspect the good doctor spoke for many of the border residents.

  When we trooped into his room, Bert lay on the bed looking strangely vulnerable for such a tough man. A startlingly white bandage circled his head, making the brown hair leaking over it appear almost black. His skin, however, had lost some of its robust color. His eyes fluttered a couple of times before he focused.

  “Sneaking in a nap, were you?” the doctor asked. “Remember what I told you. Naps are okay, but for short periods of time until the headache’s gone.”

  Bert took a look at each of us. His gaze stopped on me. “BJ, what are you doing here?”

  “Sheriff hauled me back. Wanted to know if I’d ambushed you.”

  He winced as he shook his head. “Wrong fellow. Complexion’s not dark enough.”

  “So you saw the bushwhacker?” O’Brien asked.

  “No. But the shot came from Mexico.”

  “Damned near it. You up to telling me what happened?”

  Bert had to stop to rest now and then, but the story slowly emerged. He had been furious with his mother about the meeting with the other ranch owners, and the longer he thought about it, the madder he got. When he finished checking on some of his hands who were moving cattle from a pasture abutting the border to one across the highway, he started back to headquarters. On the way he spotted Millicent’s piebald gelding at the edge of the City. Puzzled over why she was there, he decided to check her out. Besides, it was a perfect place to have a showdown—nobody around to put a leash on their tongues.

  He landed far enough away to keep from spooking Rufus, shut down the engine, and started walking toward the City. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of light bright enough to make him halt and look for the source. After that everything went blank.

  “You think the flash he saw was the gunshot?” the doctor asked.

  “How far away was the shooter?” I asked the deputy.

  “My man figured a couple of hundred yards.”

  “At that range he wouldn’t have time to see the muzzle flash. It was probably the metal gun barrel or sunglasses. Whatever it was, it may have saved his life.” I reconsidered my answer. “Or damned near took it.”

  Chapter 14

  MILLICENT AND I imitated Mexican jumping beans as a lanky cowboy with an East Texas drawl floorboarded the pickup across the flatlands southeast of the ranch house, jerking the steering wheel this way and that to avoid creosote bushes and clumps of mesquit
e but plowing right through broad swatches of wildflowers. The Lazy M driver, who had introduced himself as “Lynz”—which I took to be Linus—seemed glued to the seat.

  More than once my cherry-red Lobo baseball cap tapped the roof of the compartment. The back of my head made regular contact with a Winchester .30-30 mounted on a rack over the back window. Millicent, riding in the middle, had less to hang on to than I did, but she sat as impassive as a bouncing block of stone. I expected her to call the driver down. She didn’t. Apparently they drove this way down here. O’Brien and a crime scene deputy called Buck ate our dust in a Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Explorer as we raced to the City of Rocks.

  After five miles of torture, I spotted Bert’s chopper sitting on the hardpan, where it would likely remain in splendid isolation until he was fit to pilot it again. Beyond the grounded bird, I glimpsed the City.

  Although I had been prepared for the sight, it still startled me. From this distance the place appeared to be well named. It looked like a ten-acre cluster of buildings rising out of the desert floor. Not a city maybe, but a town—a ghost town. Linus ground to a halt, and once our trailing column of dust drifted past, I climbed out of the vehicle and checked to make sure all my various joints worked. A couple of doors slammed, and O’Brien and Buck joined us as we stood staring at the City. Then Millicent stepped forward.

  With a Winchester under her arm, she brushed aside the wind-whipped crime scene tape supported by stakes driven into the dry earth and strode to a rusty stain on the ground fifty yards in front of the helicopter. Blood. Bert’s blood. I glanced around. Linus also carried a rifle; Buck toted a shotgun. O’Brien had a large black semiautomatic handgun on his hip. I felt naked. My 9 millimeter rested in the trunk of the Impala.

  “Best I can recall, the shot came from over that direction.” Millicent pointed to the east.

  “Little more to the south.” Buck led us across the desert. “Here’s where he stopped and took his shot. Wasn’t a big man. Small boots, and his footsteps wasn’t wide like a man Bert’s size would be. I reckon him to be five nine or less.” He indicated a couple of scooped-out spots where he’d taken casts of the prints.

  There was little to see and less to find. The zephyr, virtually a constant in this open, exposed country, had obscured almost everything. If yellow tape hadn’t marked the spot, I would not have been able to find where Bert went down. Nonetheless, we walked every inch of the place, following Buck—the entire forensics team, I gathered—as he explained what he and the Lazy M hands had found. He had taken photos before everything totally vanished beneath the force of the wind, so except for snapping shots of the blood-soaked spot, the helicopter, and a wide-angle view of the City of Rocks, my Minolta stayed on my belt. My recorder, however, played during the whole expedition.

  “How do you figure it?” O’Brien’s question took me by surprise.

  “Did you ask Bert if he saw anybody besides his mother on his approach to the City?”

  “Tried to ask him right after I arrived,” O’Brien answered. “He said not, but I’m not even sure he knew the question. Too addled at the time. Haven’t asked him since.”

  “Whoever was coming to meet Millicent saw the helicopter land and thought he’d been double-crossed. So he did what he’d threatened and tried to kill someone close to her.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  I turned to Millicent. “The note tells us the writer knew about the planned meeting with the ranchers. But did anyone besides the people who were invited know it actually took place?”

  “We’re not exactly a closemouthed bunch. It’s likely a lot of outsiders knew about it. Everybody on the Lazy M knew.”

  “Why does it matter?” O’Brien asked.

  “Because if the shooter knew, he might have had an inside contact.”

  “Must not be too inside, or he’d have known the meeting fell apart,” Millicent said.

  “Has anyone checked out that rock pile over there?” I eyed the City.

  “Yep,” Buck answered. “The ranch hands and me went through it after we finished with the crime scene. Wasn’t nobody there.”

  “Let’s have a look.” O’Brien hitched up his equipment belt and started walking. The rest of us trailed along behind.

  The Lazy M’s City of Rocks might have been smaller than the big one north of Deming, which measured about a mile across, but it was still impressive. Nature had laid out a tangle of fat, massive monoliths and slender pillars of stone precisely like a city or a town.

  The brown and gray rocks had the look of weathered rhinoceros skin. Alleyways and streets and even a broad avenue meandered between buildings of solid rock with occasional stele that reminded me of Egyptian obelisks and Indian totems. Sporadic gusty currents whispered and whistled eerily across the frozen lava and hardened pumice, giving the air a dry, dusty smell. We found no sign of an intruder. The place was pristine—except for our own footprints.

  Buck took us a quarter of a mile farther east to the fence where the shooter had slipped across the border into Mexico. I eyed the strands of taut barbed wire and turned to look back the way we had come. There seemed to be a faint trail in the sand, something more than just our recent passing.

  “This wire looks new,” I said.

  “It is,” Millicent answered. “It gets cut a lot. This is their highway, and we try to keep a close eye on it.”

  O’Brien shaded his eyes with his hand. “They likely cross and take shelter in the City before making their march to the highway, where somebody picks them up.”

  “It’s got something else too. Water.” Millicent waved toward a windmill a quarter of a mile to the north.

  “Drug mules or coyotes?” I asked, meaning the humans who smuggle illegal aliens across the border.

  “Both. Sometimes the Border Patrol will put a man in the City to watch for them, but then they just move up or down the line to another place. But this is their favorite.”

  I looked across the fence. “What’s over there?”

  “That’s the Rayo. The Lightning Ranch.”

  “Hector Acosta’s spread?”

  She glanced at me. “Yeah. You know Heck?”

  “Met him recently in Las Cruces. You?”

  “Oh yes. Heck and I are old friends, old competitors.” She rubbed the back of her neck, shifted the rifle under the other arm, and turned away.

  Puzzled, I watched her walk back toward the vehicles, closely shadowed by Linus with his rifle at the ready.

  O’Brien moved up beside me. “Mud has a long history with Acosta. Back in the old days, Acosta’s daddy worked on the Rayo. There was a lot of across-the-border trading back then, so him and her sorta grew up together. There was talk at one time about those two getting hitched. That was before Ren, her husband, come on the scene, of course, and before Acosta went out and got rich and married that blonde show gal. They say he bought that ranch over there just because his papa used to work as a peon on it. Wasn’t no vaquero; just worked digging ditches and cutting grass and the like. Acosta and Mud would’ve made a grand pair. Not sure which one woulda survived, but it woulda been a hell of a show.”

  “If they’re old friends and rival ranchers, why don’t they get together to keep the cartels from using their land? It seems like it would be easier to put a stop to it if both sides were plugged.”

  “The Mexican ranchers claim they’re as helpless as we are to shut down the traffic. Maybe they are, and maybe they ain’t. Or maybe they get paid to look the other way.”

  “Is that happening on our side too?”

  “Not that I heard of. Our people are victims, not partners.”

  We piled into our vehicles and headed back to headquarters. Halfway there a small red-and-white Piper swooped overhead, wagged its wings, and nosed up to gain some altitude.

  “Speak of the devil,” Millicent said. “That’s Heck Acosta’s plane. Looks like he’s come calling.”

  The craft circled over the ranch house once and then se
ttled down. Apparently the wind sock I’d noticed near Bert’s helipad had other purposes. The flat ground nearby served as a strip for small craft. As we drew closer, the bold streak of lightning painted on the Piper’s tail left no doubt as to whose plane it was.

  A khaki-clad Acosta stepped off the patio to greet us as we parked. He went straight to Millicent and engulfed her in a bear hug. “Mud, oh, Mud.” He patted her gently on the back. “Now they’re shooting our boys. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m holding up just fine. Bert will be all right.”

  “Yes, I know. Maria tells me he grows stronger by the minute.” He released her and turned to me. “BJ, we meet again. A pleasure to see you, but not under these circumstances, of course. I’m glad you were here to give Millicent some comfort.” His eyes twinkled briefly. “Has anyone described you as a comforting presence before?”

  “No, I’m mostly treated like a burr under the saddle.”

  “Deputy.” He acknowledged O’Brien and nodded in Buck’s direction. Linus had headed for the stables the moment we arrived.

  “What are you doing here?” Millicent asked.

  “I was in Cruces when I heard the news and came to see if I could help. Word has spread all up and down the state. Shocking! How did it happen?”

  “Bert saw me out for a ride down by the City and landed his chopper to talk. As he was walking toward me, someone shot him—from over in your direction.”

  We moved inside, where Maria had prepared something to eat. Welcome news. I hadn’t stopped in Cruces for lunch on the way to Albuquerque, and it now approached evening.

  While Millicent went to change out of her bloody clothing, I snatched a moment to call Hazel at home. She put me on the speakerphone—so she could take notes, she claimed. She heard me out and promised to fill Charlie in tomorrow morning. Yeah, right. He probably sat right there listening to the whole conversation. They were still keeping their romance a secret—or so they thought. She agreed to call Del and give him a preliminary report.

  Maria detained me a moment as I headed for the dining room. “You find my boy yesterday?”