Endangered

20

Like many westerners, Joe liked to seek out pockets of the rural west in any urban environment. Finding members of his tribe provided comfort. Although Denver was geographically in the west and there were plenty of remaining frontier vestiges—the Black American West Museum, the Buckhorn Exchange restaurant, the National Western Stock Show—it was also a large metro area of more than two million people, with funky hotels, restaurants, professional sports teams, gangs, and hipsters smoking legal weed and drinking craft beer. It was the anti-Saddlestring, and the politicians who ran Denver didn’t like to play up its western roots.

The rodeo that Rulon had suggested offered a refuge, and Joe had nothing else to do before the federal lab opened in the morning. As soon as he bought his ticket and went inside the indoor National Western complex, he smelled familiar smells and encountered familiar-looking people. The men milling around the exhibition booths wore jeans, boots, and hats. Most left-side back Wrangler pockets showed Copenhagen chewing tobacco rings.

Unlike when walking around the 16th Street Mall downtown, he expected to meet someone he knew, and he did. The two brothers Stan and Dave Flitner ran the Lazy T Ranch outside of Saddlestring. They had a booth of their own and they were taking orders for bull semen in the hallway to the indoor rodeo arena.

“Look out!” Stan said in mock alarm when he recognized Joe. “It’s the game warden! Dave, hide those fish!”

“Ha-ha,” Joe said, shaking their hands. They both wore black hats because it was still technically winter. Within two months or so, they’d replace their felt hats with straw hats and summer would be official.

“What brings you down here?” Dave asked from behind the table.

“Just killing time,” Joe said. “I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Want to buy some bull semen?” Stan asked. “We’ll give you a ten percent discount on account of you’re local.”

“I’ll have to pass,” Joe said with a straight face. “I’ve still got a couple of gallons in my refrigerator.”

“That’s too bad,” Stan laughed. “Business has been kind of slow.”

—

THE CROWD INSIDE the arena was sparse, which was no doubt disappointing to the organizers of the event, Joe thought. Too much to do in Denver on a weekend, he guessed, as he settled into his seat. Still, those who were in the grandstands seemed to be hard-core rodeo fans by the way they cheered and applauded certain cowboys. They were probably in fantasy rodeo leagues, Joe thought.

While he watched the saddle bronc and bareback events, he followed the cowboys on the program.

The All-Star Shootout, he learned, was designed to attract only the top cowboys in each event. Unlike the PRCA circuit in the summer, where any cowboy with a PRCA card could pay an entry fee and ride, this was invitation-only. These were the names rodeo fans knew and followed, and Joe recognized a few of the top contestants.

As he read over the list of cowboys in the bull-riding section, he saw the name Cody McCoy. He didn’t issue a voodoo curse, but he again recalled what Lucy had observed. Since she’d been right about Wentworth’s desire for Annie Hatch, maybe she’d also been right about something else.

Lucy had said there was no way that April and Dallas Cates had gone their separate ways, even though Dallas—and Brenda—insisted on it. If April never regained consciousness, it might remain a mystery forever, one of those loose ends that would always nag at him.

Joe studied the names of the bull riders. They were from all over: Decatur, Texas; Terrebonne, Oregon; Donalda, Alberta, Canada; Waycross, Georgia; Oral, South Dakota; Winnemucca, Nevada; Los Lunas, New Mexico; Roosevelt, Utah; O’Brien, Florida; Stephenville, Texas.

Stephenville was where Dallas had moved to once he went professional.

Joe thought about it. These champion rodeo cowboys lived thousands of miles apart, yet they gathered together every weekend during the winter and practically every day in the summer at some rodeo or another. They traveled together, lived together, competed together. He thought there may very well be a couple of them, and maybe more, behind the chutes at that very minute who knew Dallas, and probably April as well. Maybe one of them could clear up the discrepancy.

He slapped the rodeo program against his leg and stood up. He was glad he was wearing his uniform.

—

IT WAS CALLED the “ready area” and it was located under the stands behind the chutes, out of view from the general public. Joe worked his way down there until he encountered a security guard who wouldn’t let him through.

The guard wore a blue uniform shirt and eyed him warily.

“I’m not supposed to let anyone back there if they don’t have a credential,” the guard said.

“This is my credential,” Joe said, pointing to the pronghorn antelope patch on his arm that said WYOMING GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT and then his badge over his breast pocket. “I just need to talk to a couple of guys.”

“What did they do?”

“They may know something about a situation I’m investigating,” Joe said, keeping it truthful but vague.

“Man, I don’t know,” the guard said, looking around.

“Here’s my card,” Joe said, handing it over. “You can see I’m legit. And if you need to call your supervisor over, go ahead.”

The man smiled. “I don’t even know who my supervisor is. I’m just a weekend rent-a-cop. The Nuggets aren’t playing today or I’d be at Pepsi Center, running one of the parking lots.”

Joe waited.

“Oh, okay,” the man said, stepping aside. “Don’t get me in any trouble.”

“I never promise that.” Joe smiled.

—

THERE WERE A DOZEN private dramas unfolding within the ready area as Joe approached. The atmosphere inside the chain-link barrier was electric and intense.

Cowboys sat on saddles on the concrete floor with one hand on imaginary reins and the other in the air, acting out a ride to come. Others slapped themselves across the face while they strode from one wall to the other like football players awaiting kickoff. Several stood with their eyes clamped shut, praying wordlessly.

As Joe entered, he stepped around a rodeo cowboy expertly taping his Wrangler jean legs around the shafts of his boots, and another tightening his riding glove by cinching a string of leather between his teeth.

He didn’t know where to start.

In the arena, the saddle bronc competition ended and the cowboys who had ridden in it streamed into the ready area. They acted differently from the ones waiting to ride because they were done. Some joked and patted others on the back, some scowled at getting bucked off, one cowboy bitched about his score and said he’d been jobbed by “that fat judge with the stupid mustache.” As the saddle bronc riders gathered up their gear, the bull riders filed out one by one. To a man, they seemed more wired and tightly wrapped than the bronc riders. Each cowboy had a friend or two with him who would help him out mounting the bull, getting set, and offering encouragement.

To Joe’s left, through thick steel panels, the bulls were herded down a runway and into individual chutes. Some of the bulls were so stout, the arena attendants had trouble closing the gates to pen them in.

Joe approached a saddle bronc rider who looked affable and relaxed. The cowboy was stuffing tape and water bottles into a rodeo gear bag he’d sling over his back and take to the airport.

“How’d you do?” Joe asked.

“I got an 88,” the cowboy said with a smile. He was missing a front tooth and he had a high, southern accent.

Joe knew the score was derived by judges in the arena who awarded up to fifty points on the animal and fifty points on the cowboy. The bull or bronco the cowboys rode was drawn at random. Eighty-eight was a good score.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“I had a good draw,” the cowboy said, meaning he’d drawn a good bronc. “I think that score’ll hold up, so I’m in the money.”

The cowboy introduced himself as Evan Lucey and said he was from Oklahoma City. He wore a necklace with a cross on it.

Joe gestured to the other cowboys in the ready area and said, “I suppose you guys all know each other pretty well.”

“Yeah, I’d say we do,” Lucey said. “I sat with most of ’em in Cowboy Church this mornin’.”

“I’m trying to find a couple of cowboys who might know a guy I know.”

“Who’s that?”

“Dallas Cates.”

At the mention of the name, Lucey physically recoiled. His affability vanished.

He looked down at his boots and said, “Yeah, everybody knows Dallas.”

“Are you a friend of his?” Joe asked.

“Can’t say I am.”

He said it in a way that suggested the conversation was over as far as he was concerned.

“Can you point me to someone who is friends with him?”

“Friends? You got me there.”

“Well, in that case, someone who knows him pretty well? I’m trying to get some information about him before he got injured.”

Evan Lucey hoisted up his gear bag and threw it onto his back. He said, “Mister, you seem like a nice guy and I wish I could help you out. But I spent all my time stayin’ away from Dallas Cates, and I’m not the only one.”

Joe frowned. He said, “Is there anybody you can suggest?”

Lucey shrugged and said, “Maybe Little Robbie. He lives in Stephenville, and I think he and Dallas might have traveled together at some point.”

“Little Robbie?”

“Rob Tassel. We call him Little Robbie. He’s up right now,” Lucey said, nodding the brim of his hat to the bull riders on deck.

“Thank you,” Joe said. “And good luck in the standings.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lucey said, tipping his hat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

Before Lucey left, Joe said, “What is it about Dallas Cates? Why did you avoid him?”

Lucey hesitated, then looked straight into Joe’s eyes and said, “Like I told you, these boys are good people. Just hard-workin’ ranch kids tryin’ to make a name for themselves and not step on each other doin’ it. Dallas wasn’t like that.”

“How so?” Joe asked.

“I already said too much, sir. The Lord frowns on gossips.”

And with that, Evan Lucey turned and went out through the gate.

—

CODY MCCOY SCORED a 92 and won the bull-riding competition. Governor Rulon, Joe guessed, would be beside himself. Rob Tassel got bucked off in two seconds. Joe wasn’t sure he’d be in the mood to talk about Dallas Cates.

He noticed as the bull riders filed into the ready area that what Lucey had told him seemed accurate. It was almost impossible to discern who had won and who had lost by the way the riders chided each other and encouraged each other at the same time. Only when a couple of them clapped a cowboy on the back and said, “Good ride,” did he know which one was Cody McCoy.

Joe gave them a few minutes to unwrap tape, change clothes, and pack up before he said, “Which one of you is Rob Tassel?”

A cowboy looked up from where he sat near his gear bag in the corner. He was dark, short, and compact. He had a scar on his cheek and warm brown eyes.

“That’d be me,” Tassel said.

Joe squatted down next to Tassel. “Tough go out there.”

Tassel shrugged. He said, “I rode that bull at Mesquite and got an eighty-nine. I thought I knowed him, but this time he zigged when he should have zagged.”

“Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

“No, sir,” Tassel said.

Joe wasn’t used to being called “sir” twice in ten minutes. He introduced himself and dug out a business card.

Tassel read it. “Wyoming game warden? I don’t know why you want to talk to me. I ain’t never hunted there, and the one time I fished some beaver ponds outside Cheyenne, all I caught was a sucker.”

“I’m doing some follow-up on a guy I’ve been told you know. Dallas Cates.”

Tassel had the same reaction as Lucey, except more pronounced.

“I got nothin’ to say about that guy.”

“What is it about him?” Joe asked. “When I mention his name, people clam up.”

“Is he a friend of yours or something?” Tassel asked.

“Nope. He went out with my daughter and I never liked it one bit.”

“April Pickett?” Tassel asked, reading Joe’s name badge again and finally putting two and two together. “April is your daughter?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, man,” Tassel said, looking around as if he were hoping someone would throw him a lifeline. “Oh, man.”

“What?” Joe asked.

Tassel leaned closer to Joe. He said, “April’s a sweetheart. I couldn’t figure out why she hung around that guy.”

Joe waited for more.

Tassel said, “I used to travel with him. We roomed together for a while on the road.”

He paused and said, “He ain’t like all these other guys.”

“In what way?”

“Dallas,” Tassel said, “he’s just different. I ain’t sayin’ he’s the devil, and he’s a hell of a bull rider, but he ain’t one of the guys, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Joe said.

Tassel nodded his hat brim at the other cowboys in the ready area. He kept his voice down.

“All these guys you see around here will lend each other a hand. They’ll see your draw and say, ‘That bull spins left and crow-hops right out of the chute.’ Dallas never done that. He couldn’t care less. If he’d rode a particular bull before, he’d tell a cowboy who drew him lies about what that bull would do. That’s so Dallas would keep the high score. We all learned we can’t trust him. He’s in this game just for himself. He’s one selfish dude. Maybe that’s how he stays focused and wins all the time, I don’t know. I just know nobody else acts like that. We all try to get along, you know?”

Joe nodded.

“Dallas earned more money than any of us,” Tassel said. “But he’d always be the first guy to leave the table at a restaurant and stick everyone else with the check. Or he’d say he’d split a hotel room with you and never pay it back.

“We’re all like a football team, you know? Lots of camaraderie, if that’s the right word. We watch out for one another and step in if a guy’s going to get himself in trouble. It’s easy on the road to take the wrong path. But Dallas, he’s like the crazy egotistical wide receiver who’s only in it for himself, you know? He’s always bein’ the big shot. Like he is better than anyone else and he makes sure you know it. And he is better. He’s an incredible athlete. But he don’t need to rub our noses in it, you know?

“That poor April,” Tassel continued. “She didn’t know Dallas had a girl or two in every town. He’d ask me to keep her busy so he could sneak off with every buckle bunny he could find. She is a nice girl, you know? You raised her right. I tried to tell her once what Dallas was like, but she didn’t want to hear it. He had her buffaloed, you know?”

Joe felt the anger rising in his chest.

He said, “Do you know if they broke up before Dallas got injured?”

Tassel looked surprised. He said, “Not that I know of.” Then: “Hell, if that had happened, I would have gone after April in a heartbeat . . .”

He caught himself and flushed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that to her dad.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Joe said, “but I’d be a lot more comfortable with you around than I ever was with Dallas.”

“Still, sorry.”

“One more thing,” Joe said. “Do you know if they left Houston together after Dallas got injured?”

Tassel thought about it. He said, “I guess I don’t know for sure. I sort of assumed they did, since all of a sudden they were both gone, but I didn’t see them leave together or nothin’.”

“Would anyone know for sure?” Joe asked.

Tassel shook his head. “I doubt it. Dallas did his own thing, like I said. I was his only friend, and that’s just because I’m stupid. He’s the kind of guy who would just leave without sayin’ nothin’ to anyone.”

Joe said, “Dallas told me that April broke up with him and played the field, trying to make him jealous.”

“That no-good son of a bitch,” Tassel said. He looked up at Joe with fire in his eyes. “Believe me, Mr. Pickett, that never happened.”

“I believe you,” Joe said, trying to keep his anger off his face. “Did he ever put his hands on her?”

“I never seen it,” Tassel said. “But I wouldn’t put it past him. I do remember she was wearing big old sunglasses for a week or so up at Calgary. She wouldn’t take ’em off, even indoors. But I never seen him hit her.”

“But you wouldn’t put it past him?” Joe said.

“I wouldn’t put nothin’ past Dallas Cates.”

Joe thanked Tassel and wished him the best of luck at the next rodeo.

As he turned to leave, Tassel said, “Mr. Pickett?”

Joe turned.

“You ain’t gonna tell Dallas we talked, are you?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be on the wrong side of that guy. Or his family.”

Joe paused. “What about his family?”

“I met ’em a couple of times when they came to see Dallas ride. They ain’t exactly a fun bunch, and that mom of his . . .”

“What?”

Tassel shook his head. “She’s just scary, man. She don’t want anybody to beat Dallas in nothin’. She’d say things to other bull riders like ‘You better let Dallas win or I’ll send my boys after you.’ Things like that.”

“Did you ever hear her say that?” Joe asked.

“Hell, she said it to me in Cheyenne,” Tassel said, shaking his head. “She’s got a thing about Dallas that ain’t healthy.”

That night, in his hotel room in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the federal forensics lab, after sending Governor Rulon his condolences regarding Cody McCoy’s ninety-two-point ride, he called Marybeth and told her what he’d learned about Brenda and Dallas Cates at the rodeo.

“It sounds like he was talking about Ma Barker,” she said.

“She scares men who ride sixteen-hundred-pound bulls,” Joe said. “That’s not nothing.”