Bag Limit

Chapter Twenty-three

“Thanks for not chasing the boy off into some tree stump somewheres,” Herb Torrance said. He had good reason to look and sound miserable. He watched the ambulance pull out of the parking lot and shook his head wearily. He turned back to Larson and me. “Thank God his momma wasn’t home. Jesus.” He heaved a great sigh. “I don’t guess you all know for sure what happens next.”

“No,” I said. “First things first, Herb. Let the doctors check him out. He took a hell of a rap, so they’ll probably hold him overnight. There’ll be a deputy at the hospital to make sure he doesn’t do something foolish if he wakes up in the middle of the night.”

I tried a sympathetic smile, but I was weary myself. As soon as the Torrance kid had spun that pickup truck out of the yard, my nerves had replayed hell with my system. On the drive south on County Road 14, my imagination had conjured all kinds of awful scenarios, each one ending with Dale Torrance splattered over the New Mexico landscape.

“You don’t need to worry about him getting out of that room. He ain’t goin’ nowheres,” Herb said emphatically. “The wife wasn’t home when all this happened, thank God. But I’m going to pick her up now, and we’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes. And we’ll be there, as long as it takes.”

“That’s good, Herb. I’ll talk to Judge Hobart as soon as we get back to Posadas this evening, and see if he can arrange a preliminary hearing for the morning…assuming Dale’s released by then. You understand that he’s in our custody right now?”

“Yep,” Herb Torrance said. “I understand that, all right. The boy’s gotten himself in a hell of a mess.” He thrust out his hand. “Thanks again.” He grinned and ducked his head in embarrassment. “I don’t guess I handled this all too good.”

“It happens.”

“Shouldn’t have, by God. And by the way, what’s the deal with Waddell’s steers, now? They’re impounded over in Lawton?”

I nodded. Cliff Larson cleared his throat. “And the Oklahoma authorities sure as hell don’t want a feed bill, so they’re eager to have someone truck ’em out of there.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Herb said. “Give me tonight, to make sure the boy’s going to be all right. Then I’ll go over first thing in the morning, or whenever Judge Hobart is done with us.”

“That’ll work,” Larson said. “They’re at Emerson Livestock, right on the south side of town. I’ll fix you up with paperwork so you can get ’em back.”

Herb nodded and again shook first my hand, and then Larson’s. Cliff and I watched him trudge back to his pickup. “Ain’t that a sorry mess,” Cliff muttered. He looked at me and grinned, the stub of the cigarette jerking as his lips moved. “See why I need you to fill in for me?”

I glowered at Larson and mouthed an obscenity at him. That split his grin even wider.

By 6:30, the last patrol car pulled out of the parking lot of Victor Sanchez’s Broken Spur Saloon, leaving him in relative peace and quiet. I had no doubt that by closing time, the story passed from drunk to drunk would include at least eighteen officers converging on the saloon from all sides, with Victor alone able to subdue Dale Torrance, saving the fair damsel behind the bar from who knows what fate. What the hell. It was all good for his business, even though he would be the last one to admit it.

I dropped Cliff off at the Public Safety Building where he’d stashed his truck. With things quieting down, we had an extra vehicle or two, so I took the unmarked car home with me.

I didn’t know what direction Bob Torrez’s investigation of Sosimo Baca’s death was taking, but at the moment I was too tired to ask. It was his ball game, anyway. If he needed something from me, he’d say so.

When I walked into my house on Guadalupe Terrace, I could hear familiar theme music. In the sunken living room off the kitchen, my grandson was hunkered down in front of the television watching Gary Cooper stand uncomfortably in front of the church congregation. “Now you all know what I think of this man,” the on-screen mayor was saying self-righteously.

My son was settled deep in the leather folds of my favorite chair, a book open on his lap. “We couldn’t find where you store the rest of your tapes,” Buddy said with a wide grin. He knew perfectly well the answer to that mystery. He’d given me a VCR and the tape of High Noon for Christmas several years before, I suppose figuring that would kick off my collection.

It didn’t kick off anything. I’d watched the movie countless times, and could probably recite most of the dialogue by heart. During a burglary of my home two years before by local teenagers, the original VCR had been stolen, but not the tape. So much for taste. I’d replaced the VCR, but never added to the tape collection.

“This is cool beans,” my grandson said, nodding approvingly as Cooper walked out of the church, a disgusted man.

“How did your afternoon go?” Buddy said, and pushed himself out of the chair. “Sit. I’ll make some coffee.”

I waved a hand and glanced at my watch. “Even better. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“You ready for that?” my son said to Tadd, and the kid launched up off the floor and snapped off the VCR and television. “He’s always ready to eat,” Buddy added.

“We going to the Don Juan?” Tadd asked. “That’s a cool place.”

My estimation of my grandson clicked up another notch. And this time, we managed a meal that was uninterrupted and leisurely. By the time we finished eating, we were all ready to go to sleep right there in the restaurant. I knew that with close to thirty hours to wakefulness behind me and my belly full of fresh green chile I could go home and conk out for at least twelve hours. By that time it would be Sunday, the day that Estelle and her family would arrive from Minnesota.

Back at the house, we settled comfortably while Tadd watched Will Kane make preparations to face the vengeful brothers.

“So what happens after Tuesday?” Buddy asked. He rested his arm on the back of the sofa and looked at me. I tipped my mug slightly and regarded the steaming surface of the decaffeinated coffee he’d made for dessert.

“I thought maybe I’d figure that out on Wednesday morning,” I said. “Cliff Larson offered me a job today.” I shrugged. “He’s the livestock inspector. Maybe that would be interesting for a little while.”

“What sort of work would that entail?”

“Not much.” I grinned. “Basically, anytime a rancher moves livestock in New Mexico, he has to have a travel permit. The brands have to be inspected. Or lip tattoos on horses if they’re headed for a race track. You make an accurate count. Check for obvious signs of disease. That sort of thing.”

“Do you have situations very often like you had this afternoon?”

“Hopefully not,” I said. “But there’s a surprising amount of livestock theft that goes on. Our department has helped Larson clear several larceny cases over the years. And there’s more and more trouble with the border traffic. Especially with racehorses moving back and forth.” I sipped the coffee. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.” I set the cup down on the end table. “When’s your tour over?”

“In January,” Buddy said. “January twenty-sixth is my last day. Twenty-five years.”

“God, that got here in a hurry.”

“Yes it did.”

“And you’re only forty-seven years old!” I said in wonder.

“So the more immediate question is, what the hell are you going to do with yourself? Edie is not going to let you stay at home all day long and have all the fun while she’s swapping lies with other lawyers.”

My grandson glanced over at us. On screen, Katy Jurado was explaining the facts of life to Grace Kelly. “Did you tell Grandpa about our place in San Antonio?”

“You haven’t told me anything,” I said. “Great state secrets abound in this place. What’s with San Antonio?”

“We’ll be moving up there right after Christmas,” Buddy said. “I’ve got some accumulated leave, and Edie and the kids will be done with the semester. We’ve bought a place there.”

“This is all pretty sudden, isn’t it? But hell, San Antonio’s a pretty city. Why not.”

Buddy nodded enthusiastically. “You can’t imagine how happy we are to get out of Beeville. I signed on with the Texas Department of Public Safety, and San Antonio’s where I’ll be based. It worked out great, since Edie got an offer from a law firm there as well. It’s the firm she wanted.”

I held out my hands. “Whoa. You signed on with DPS?”

“Aviation division. I get to watch chases like you had this afternoon, from the air.”

“I always assumed that you’d end up with one of the airlines,” I said.

“Nah,” Buddy said with a grimace. “Bus driving is not for me. Shuttling those heavies from one city to another, full of a bunch of cranky passengers-that’s not my cup of tea. Anyway, for the last ten years or so, I’ve been in choppers.”

I smiled. “Well, good. If that’s what you want, that’s good.” I felt as if I needed sticks to prop my eyes open. I thumped the arm of the chair, and watched the TV for a few seconds. A very young Lloyd Bridges was trying to talk Cooper into saddling a horse and lighting out of Hadleyville.

“This is the same guy who was in Hot Shots, ” my grandson said with considerable wonder.

“Forty-five years younger,” I said. “And since I know how this movie ends, I’m going to go to bed. You guys are welcome to watch movies all night, if you want. There’s even a video store downtown, if you get desperate.” I pushed myself to my feet with an audible symphony of joints.

It was nearly nine. The phone had left me in peace for three hours. In my bedroom at the opposite end of the house, I couldn’t hear a sound-not my grandson chatting with his father, or the gunshots as Gary Cooper settled accounts, and certainly not the gentle little chunk as he pitched his badge in the dust at the end of the movie.

The cool silence enveloped me and for once chased away the devils of insomnia and the kind of circular, unproductive problem-solving that inflicts the prone and the wakeful. Maybe it was just the pleasure at having good company under my roof once more, with the anticipation of more to come the next day. Maybe it was profound relief that Dale Torrance had suffered nothing more serious than a rap on the head-something he probably needed anyway.

Whatever the reason, I slept like a dead man, deep and hard. It would have been nice to awaken refreshed and rested, with the sun of Sunday morning just peeking through the cotton-woods. Instead, I jerked awake soaked in sweat, the house silent and black. My mind had been working, even if the rest of me hadn’t.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, and sat up straight. The clock on the dresser said forty minutes after two. I fumbled for the telephone and managed to find the right buttons for the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.