“What does that mean?”
“Well, what I was worried about,” G.W. said dryly, “was that there was somebody up there drawin’ a bead on us with a high-powered rifle that’d shoot that far. Why’d you think I hustled you on into the house, anyway?” He rasped his fingertips over the beard stubble on his chin. “Of course, a bullet from a rifle powerful enough to shoot that far probably would’ve gone right through the wall. But at least the son of a buck wouldn’t be able to see what he was aimin’ at.”
“Wait a minute,” Kyle said as he tried to wrap his brain around what his grandfather had just told him. “You think somebody might have wanted to kill us?”
“Well, if they did, they left. More than likely, though, it was somebody with a pair of binoculars spyin’ on us. Couldn’t take a chance on the other, though. Shoot, you just got here. We ain’t had a chance to visit much yet.”
Kyle gave a little shake of his head as if what he’d just heard didn’t make much sense. He said, “Why would you even think somebody might want to shoot you?”
“Like I said, I didn’t, not really. I was just bein’ careful. But there’s been some strange things goin’ on around here lately, Kyle. My hands have spotted fellas on the ranch who didn’t have any business bein’ here. So have I. We’ve never been able to catch any of ’em, though.”
“Maybe they’re smuggling drugs or undocumented immigrants over from Mexico,” Kyle suggested.
“Yeah, I thought about that, but we’re a little too far from the border to make that likely. Some of that sort of stuff goes on around here, of course, but my gut tells me this is somethin’ different.”
G.W. came in and hung the rifle on the gun rack again.
“Saw a little dust hangin’ in the air, over on the ridge,” he went on. “Like a car drove off. That makes me think somebody was watchin’ us, too.”
“Like maybe the IRS?”
“I can’t see any reason why they would,” G. W. said with a frown. “But at the same time, you can’t really put anything past those ol’ boys. They play fast and loose with the truth and the rules, and they’ve been doin’ that ever since somebody decided workin’ for the government means workin’ for the Democratic Party.”
“Still, skulking around a ranch doesn’t seem like something the IRS would do,” Kyle said. “Do you have any other enemies?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ve always been plainspoken enough that there’s no tellin’ who might have me on a list somewhere.”
Kyle knew that was true. Growing up in a suburb of Dallas, he’d been surrounded by liberal attitudes all his life, and naturally he had accepted most of them. When he was young, his grandfather’s opinionated personality had rubbed him the wrong way on many occasions.
It had taken being out in the real world and seeing how things actually worked to open Kyle’s eyes to the facts. He had worked construction during the summers while he was in high school, and that had taught him as much as any classroom ever could.
“You think it’s safe for me to go back out and get my duffel bag from the truck?” he asked.
“Yeah, whoever it was, they’re gone.”
“But they’ll be back?” Kyle guessed.
“More than likely.” G.W. had a thoughtful look on his face as he went on. “But now that you’re here, maybe whatever’s goin’ on, we can put a stop to it.”
Chapter 12
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. G. W. didn’t press Kyle for details about what he’d been doing since he’d seen him last, and Kyle didn’t volunteer any. He just told his grandfather that he’d been drifting around, seeing the country.
Basically, that was the truth. When he was in a city big enough to have a day labor center, he picked up odd jobs that way, and when he had enough money for a bus ticket and to take care of his other needs for a while, he moved on.
Several times he had been approached by guys who wanted him to stand on a street corner with a sign saying he was a homeless veteran—which was technically true, Kyle supposed—and beg money from people who drove by.
Kyle had turned down every one of those invitations, and none too politely, as well. Whatever he had, even though it wasn’t much, he worked for it. And when he couldn’t get enough work, he did without.
He was perfectly willing to accept G.W.’s hospitality, though. Family was family, after all. And Kyle was willing to do whatever he could to help out around the place, too, and pay his grandfather back that way.
That evening G. W. fired up the grill on the back porch, and when he had the bed of coals the right shade of red, he wrapped two potatoes in aluminum foil and put them down in the coals, under the rack. Then two thick steaks from the refrigerator went on the grill, too.
Kyle thought it all smelled wonderful.
“I don’t suppose we’re going to have a salad with that,” he said.
G. W. snorted and said, “If you want rabbit food, there’s the makin’s for it in the icebox. Help yourself.”
Kyle had to laugh.
“You’re a living, breathing time warp, you know that, G.W.?”
“Not sure what you mean by that, so I reckon I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“That’s fine. That’s pretty much the way I meant it.”
When the food was ready, they sat on the back porch with their plates in their laps and longnecks on the floor beside them. The mountains rose before them, with a rosy glow from the fading sunset behind them.
The scene was such a peaceful one that it made Kyle angry to think that the government wanted to force G. W. off his land. His grandfather was happy here. The IRS had no right to do what they were doing.
“I don’t suppose you want to go to church with me in the mornin’,” G.W. said.
“I’m not much for singing hymns and listening to a preacher, you know that.”
“It might do you some good.”
“It probably would,” Kyle agreed, “but if it’s all right with you, I think I’ll just sleep in.”
“Fine. I’m not gonna argue with you.”
“Maybe there are some chores around here I can do for you,” Kyle suggested.
“I’ll take care o’ Sunday chores before I leave,” G.W. said gruffly. “Don’t worry about it.”
Kyle nodded. He knew he had let his grandfather down, but there was only so much a guy could change at a time.
He changed the subject by saying, “Tell me about the people who have been sneaking around here. What did you mean when you said maybe we could put a stop to it?”
“Half a dozen times my hands have spotted a couple of fellas in a jeep out on the range where they shouldn’t be. We still work the cattle mostly on horseback, so by the time my men rode out to where the jeep was, it was gone and so were the fellas in it. I’ve seen ’em myself. Not only that, I’ve heard their engine at night, up around that pool at the edge of the hills.”
Kyle knew the pool his grandfather meant. The creek formed it by running into a basin in the rocks. It wasn’t very big, maybe twenty feet across and five or six feet deep, and from there the stream trickled on out in the valley for another quarter mile before disappearing. Kyle had gone swimming in that natural pool when he was a kid, and he remembered how clear and cold the water was.
“What I was thinkin’,” G. W. went on, saying, “is that you and me would stake ourselves out up there and wait for the varmints to show up.”
“At night, you mean?”
“Yeah. We’ll take our sleepin’ bags and take turns standin’ guard until they show up again.”
“And what do we do then?” Kyle asked.
“Well, we’ll take rifles, too,” G.W. said. “That ought to help convince ’em to tell us who they are and what in blazes they’re doing sneakin’ around my ranch.”
Kyle frowned and said, “You’re going to throw down on IRS agents? That’s a good way to get your butt in a federal pen, G.W.—or shot off.”
“Well, what do you think we ought
to do?” G.W. demanded with a frown of his own.
“Having a stakeout and trying to catch them is a good idea, but maybe we’d better leave the guns at home. You’ve got a spotlight, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“If we hit them with the spotlight, they won’t be able to see us. They won’t know whether we’re armed or not. If they’ve got any sense they’ll answer our questions. This is still your land, and you’ve got a right to know who’s on it and why.”
G. W. snorted and said, “Well, I’m glad we see eye to eye on that much, anyway.”
“We’d better record the whole thing, too. If we can prove that the IRS has been trespassing, it might help your case in court.”
“Maybe,” G.W. said in grudging agreement. “I’ve got one of those fancy phones that’ll record video.”
“That’s not fancy. They’ll all do that now. They have for twenty years or more.”
G. W. ignored that and said, “We’ll start tomorrow night. Don’t want to do it tonight because it might interfere with church in the mornin’—and with your sleepin’ in.”
Kyle let that little jab go on by unremarked and picked up the longneck from the porch planks beside his chair.
“To Operation Skulker,” he said as he raised the bottle in a toast.
G.W. just made a slightly disgusted sound, lifted his own beer, and said, “To corralin’ skunks—government and otherwise.”
Chapter 13
Kyle spent the night in the room where his father had grown up. All of his dad’s things were gone, and the bed and the rest of the furnishings were different. Even the paint on the walls wasn’t the same as when Ted Brannock had lived here.
G. W. had changed all of that after the accident that took the lives of Kyle’s parents. At the time, Kyle had thought that was pretty callous of the old man.
By now he had come to wonder, though, if his grandfather had done that more to shield himself from the pain of losing his only child. That certainly seemed possible, although Kyle wasn’t going to ask him about it. For one thing, G. W. might have done it without even realizing that was the reason.
Despite his intention of staying in bed late, Kyle woke fairly early the next morning. His sleep had been restless, and he was vaguely aware that it had been disturbed by bad dreams, even though he didn’t remember them.
He sat up and swung his feet out of bed, and as he stood up, he felt his muscles aching from the fight with Vern Hummel the day before, as well as having the stun gun used on him. He stretched his back, rolled his shoulders, and swung his arms around to loosen up a little as he went to the window.
When he pushed back the curtain, he saw that the sun was up, but he could tell by the quality of the light that the hour was early. As he turned away from the window, he caught a faint whiff of coffee brewing. For several seconds he stood there looking from the door to the bed as he pondered crawling under the covers again. He might be able to go back to sleep and get a couple more hours.
Then he muttered, “The hell with it,” pulled on his jeans, and padded barefoot to the door.
When he walked into the kitchen, his grandfather was sitting at the table wearing shiny brown shoes, the pants from a brown suit, and a long-sleeved white shirt unbuttoned at the throat. He was eating a bowl of cornflakes with a banana cut up into them. A piece of toast lay on a saucer, and a cup of black coffee sat to one side. Kyle had never seen his grandfather eat anything else for breakfast.
“Coffee in the pot,” G.W. said. “Help yourself to anything else you want to fix.” He ate another bite of cereal, then added, “I didn’t expect to see you up this early.”
“I didn’t expect to be up this early,” Kyle said.
He got a cup from the cabinet and poured coffee in it, then added milk from the refrigerator and sugar from the old-fashioned sugar bowl on the table, ignoring the look of disdain G.W. gave him as he did so.
After he had sat down and taken a sip of the hot, strong brew, he went on. “I guess there’s something about the air around here that makes it hard to sleep late. You never have.”
“That’s true enough. There’s always too many things to do around a ranch to lay around in bed.” G. W. finished the cereal and reached for the toast. “Since you’re up—”
“I still haven’t changed my mind about church.”
G. W. grunted and said, “Suit yourself.”
After he’d had more of the coffee, Kyle got up and put a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster.
“Get a saucer for that,” G.W. said. “I don’t want crumbs all over the place. Brings out the roaches.”
“Sure, sure. I’ll clean up after myself.” When the toast was done, Kyle brought it back to the table and sat down again. “What about those chores?”
“Already done. The hands and I have been up for a couple of hours.”
“How many men do you have working for you now?”
“Eight. Fella named Roberto Quinones bosses the crew. His wife cooks for the four unmarried hombres. They’re good men. All of ’em been with me at least two years. They’ve all gone into town for mass.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Kyle asked with a slight smile.
“You’re gonna be out here alone this mornin’,” G. W. said. “Does that bother you?”
“Why should it? You’re not expecting any trouble, are you?”
“I don’t expect it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t show up unannounced.”
“I know where the gun rack is with the rifles and shotguns. Are they loaded?”
“An unloaded gun’s not much use for anything but a club, now is it?”
“I suppose not.”
“Just be careful,” G.W. advised. “Don’t shoot at anything unless you’re mighty sure it needs to be shot at.”
Kyle nodded. G. W. lingered for a few moments over the rest of his coffee while Kyle ate both slices of toast with butter and strawberry jam spread on them. There had to be something in the air that gave a guy an appetite, too, he thought.
G.W. put his cup, bowl, saucer, and spoon in the white enamel sink. Kyle followed suit with his saucer, but he hadn’t finished his coffee yet, so he took the cup with him. He stood in the open door of his grandfather’s bedroom, propping a shoulder against the jamb, as G.W. selected a tie and put it on.
“I never quite mastered that art,” Kyle said as G. W. tied the tie.
“I know. Your dad and I both tried to teach you, as I recall.”
“Well, it’s complicated. Anyway, I never had much need for wearing a tie.”
G.W. got his suit coat from the closet and put it on. He said, “There’s a time and a place for everything.”
“I suppose.”
G. W. picked up his Bible from the dresser. Church was just about the only place he went without wearing his straw cowboy hat. Kyle got out of the way and let him past.
“I’ll be back after the service. Keep an eye on the place.”
“I will,” Kyle promised. He glanced at the gun rack and suddenly felt a little nervous. If the mysterious intruders showed up, his grandfather would expect him to deal with them.
Kyle had never had what anybody would consider a healthy respect for authority, but he didn’t want to wind up in a shoot-out with federal agents. That was why he had told G. W. they ought to leave the guns at home when they staked out the pool.
G.W. drove off in the pickup. Kyle picked up the TV remote and turned it on, not surprised to find that the satellite receiver was tuned to a station that specialized in old movies. Randolph Scott was talking to some woman and looked worried.
Probably trying to figure out who he was going to have to shoot later, thought Kyle.
Despite his intention to change the channel, he sat down on the sofa and wound up watching the movie. He wasn’t sure how long he had been there when he noticed movement outside. As he sat up straighter and looked through the front window, he saw a car coming along the dirt road toward the house.
He
didn’t know who drove what around here, except for his grandfather’s pickup, so he had no idea who the visitor might be. Whoever it was, there was a good chance they weren’t welcome.
Kyle stood up, went to the gun rack, and took down a lever-action .30-30. He worked the lever to be sure there was a cartridge in the chamber, caught the one that was ejected, and thumbed it back through the loading gate.
On the TV, Randolph Scott was making a solemn pronouncement about putting a stop to some badman’s rampage. Kyle grabbed the remote and turned it off before he stepped out onto the porch.
When he got there, he realized he was still barefooted and shirtless and wished he had gotten fully dressed. He felt a little more defenseless than he should have, especially with a rifle in his hands.
But it was too late now, because the car came to a stop and the driver’s door swung open as the dust settled quickly.
His grandfather’s lawyer, Miranda Stephens, stepped out of the vehicle and looked at him. Her expression was serious, but he thought he saw amusement twinkling in her eyes.
He was sure of it when she said dryly, “Don’t shoot.”
Chapter 14
“I don’t suppose your grandfather is here, is he?” Miranda said, her tone more businesslike now. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be embarrassed about this. She was a grown woman. She had seen men without shirts before.
She had even seen men without shoes before.
Although none of them had been brandishing rifles at her.
Kyle lowered the weapon and shook his head. He said, “No, G.W.’s gone to church.”
Miranda winced a little and said, “Oh, that’s right. I should have remembered. He’s a deacon at the First Baptist Church, isn’t he?”
“I guess. I mean, he used to be. They don’t have term limits on things like that, do they?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m a Methodist myself, so I don’t really know for sure.”
“You’re not a big churchgoer, either, huh?”
“I got out of the habit in law school. There’s always so much work to do.”
Tyranny Page 5
