Red, Green, or Murder

Chapter Eight

Pat Gabaldon’s personal life was none of my business, unless he was a cattle thief. But all twenty-four head of Herb Torrance’s cattle grazed safely now, so purloined livestock wasn’t the issue. I reflected that had the cowpuncher here in question been the lad with the shattered knee, that might have been a different matter and a cause for real concern.

Young Dale Torrance wasn’t long off probation after pulling a stupid stunt a year before. Desperate to win the heart of a young gal, Dale had heisted a few head of cattle from a rancher up in Newton, just over the county line. He’d driven the trailer load of steers to Oklahoma and sold them to a dealer who didn’t ask questions. Dale would have blanched at hearing himself called a “rustler,” an old frontier term synonymous with “hanged”. He had some vague notion that he was going to repay the rancher somehow, but first he intended to buy the girl of his dreams a new truck. Perhaps in his mind, a Ford beat a diamond ring all hollow.

We recovered those cattle well-traveled but unscathed, and the rancher, Miles Waddell, decided not to press charges. The District Attorney, Judge Lester Hobart, and I conferred about the other charges that the state thought it might press against the kid. The upshot was that Dale was slapped with probation. Call us old softies. Dale’s rejection by the dream girl was worse punishment, no doubt…that and the ferocious licking he’d taken from his old man, who wielded a chunk of 2x4 with mean effect.

On the other hand, Pat Gabaldon was as steady and diligent as Dale was rowdy and undisciplined. Dale would disappear without a how-do-you-do, but Pat wasn’t the type. He appreciated a job and a place to live, and he liked the Torrance family. So, until an innocent explanation presented itself, my curiosity was a powerful motivator. I tried Pat’s telephone half a dozen times with no result. One logical explanation was that the young man, concerned about a badly hurt buddy, had driven Herb’s big rig back to the ranch, then hopped in his own pickup and headed for Las Cruces.

It was comfortable to think that the boy had done that, except for two things. He could have used the telephone to check up on Dale-I couldn’t imagine Pat electing to mope for hours around a smelly hospital waiting room. Secondly, Socks fidgeted on the passenger seat of my Chevy, his head thrust out the partially open window, tongue flailing like a wet rag in the breeze.

I took a route through Posadas that allowed me to glance down ninety percent of the side streets, but the big white H-Bar-T rig wasn’t parked anywhere obvious-not at any of the service stations, not at Posadas Lumber and Hardware, not at one of the four bars or the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant.

Heading south on State 56, I dialed Herb once again. This time, the phone call caught him in the hospital’s coffee shop, and I could hear the clanking of dishes in the background. Without surprise, Herb accepted the news that the cattle were safely pastured, but he was as puzzled as I was that they had gotten loose in the first place, with the dog then left to his own devices.

“I have Socks in custody,” I said, and Herb chuckled half-heartedly at the joke. “I’m headed back to your place,” I added. “I’m thinking that Pat went home to change and is headed your way right now in his own pickup. Somehow, we just missed each other along the way.”

“Might,” Herb said. “Might do that. You didn’t cross paths, then.”

“I took north 14, daydreaming about other things,” I said. “That’s where the Sheriff’s Department caught up with me. Patrick would have hauled the cattle around on the state highway, and gone back that way, too.”

“Huh,” Herb said. “He wouldn’t go off and leave the dog, though.”

“I can’t imagine that he would,” I agreed. “And by the way, not that it’s any of my business, but who’s drilling the water well just north of your place? On the backside of the mesa? I saw Paulson’s rig parked out there just beyond your fence line.”

There was a brief silence while Herb caught up after my abrupt change of subject. “Oh, that,” Herb scoffed. “Well, he ain’t got much of a start yet, I don’t think. He’d like to find water there, but if he does, he’ll drill deep enough that it’ll come out of the ground speakin’ Chinese.”

“Who’s he drilling for?”

“That’s another of Waddell’s schemes,” Herb said. “It’s kind of a picturesque spot back in there, you know. And there’s some cold air seepin’ out of the rocks enough that one of the folks from the BLM thinks that maybe there’s a wing of the cave under there. Hell, I don’t know. Or care.”

“A little speculation going on, then,” I said. Miles Waddell was the Newton rancher from whom Dale Torrance had borrowed the cattle.

“Yep. I guess old Miles thinks that if he develops a well, then come time for the BLM to work a land swap with him, it’ll be worth more. He’s probably right.”

“I didn’t know that he owned that piece.” It surprised me that Herb hadn’t fought just a little bit to own the property himself.

“Don’t think he does. Not yet, anyways. George Payton did at one time, but I don’t know about now. Him and me talked about it some. Sure hated to hear about George’s passing, I can tell you. Anyway,” he said, sounding as if he didn’t want to pursue that line of conversation any further, “are you headed down to the ranch now?”

“I thought to check on Pat,” I said. “And return the dog.”

“Well, yeah,” Herb said, voice brightening. “We’ll appreciate that. Old Socks, he’s worth about three good men.”

I rang off, tried Pat’s number once more, and slowed as I passed the Broken Spur Saloon. No rig, no answer. The pup’s front paws danced a little tattoo on my front seat as we passed the bar. He’d been there before, no doubt locked in the cab while the humans did their thing inside. A half mile farther, I turned onto the county road and headed north toward the H-Bar-T. In fifteen minutes of jouncing and dust, I had my answer.

The heeler’s agitated dance increased tempo as I swung in under the modest decorative arch over the gate. By the bunk trailer, Pat’s ten year-old Chevy truck was parked under a water-stressed elm. I pulled the SUV to a stop and reached out to rest a hand on the top of the heeler’s head. “Give me a minute,” I said, but he was ready to go. I managed to squirm out of the truck and block his exit, mindful not to slam his eager nose or sloppy tongue in the door.

Two minutes confirmed that the cattle truck wasn’t parked behind the house, or over behind the boys’ mobile home, or anywhere else hidden from immediate view. Herb Torrance’s place was dead quiet. I stood hands on hips, thinking of the possibilities, then dialed Herb again. This time, the phone rang nearly a dozen times before he answered.

“Herb,” I said, “I’m sorry to keep bugging you. How’s Dale?”

“Well, they’re going to keep him at least overnight,” he said.

“That’s standard,” I said. “The surgery went all right?”

“Well, they think so.”

“Let’s hope so. Look, I’m at your place right now. Pat hasn’t been here yet. His own truck is still here. Yours isn’t.” I reached out and patted the hood of the veteran Chevy. It was cool. “His truck hasn’t been used.”

“Huh,” Herb said.

“Was he planning to go somewhere today with your rig? Pick up some hay, maybe? Livestock feed?”

“Hadn’t planned on it.”

“A load of railroad ties, maybe?”

“Nope. We was going to move the cattle, and then go on over to Bender’s Canyon to replace an old boundary fence. We got about a quarter mile stretch over there that needs work. But I don’t think…”

“He’d take your truck for that?”

“Well, sure. Not with the trailer, though. Can’t get through the canyon trail haulin’ that son-of-a-bitch.”

I walked toward the white, prefab workshop on the far side of the house. The doors were open, and I could see the reels of new barbed wire and a pallet of metal posts. “The wire and posts are here in the shop,” I said.

“Then there’s that,” Herb said. “Look, he may have had some errand of his own that he took a mind to do. He’ll show up.”

“He wouldn’t drive your rig to Cruces, I don’t think.”

“Oh, hell no. That rig’s a diesel-suckin’ hog with that stock trailer hooked on behind. Bad enough without it. No, I don’t think he’d do that. You got the dog, though?”

“I do.”

“Just put him in the boys’ trailer. They never lock the place, and old Socks, he’ll be all right.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “My best to Annie.” I switched off, and aimed an expletive at Pat Gabaldon for being so thoughtless. Despite Herb’s suggestion, I wasn’t about to dump the dog in the bunk house. The Torrances wouldn’t be back from Cruces until who knew when. If Pat was on a fling somewhere, the abandoned heeler would take the butt end of it. On the off chance that luck would change, I tried Pat’s phone again, with no response. Ambling back across the yard to my truck, I tried to come up with some stroke of genius, but drew a blank. Tearing out a page from my notebook, I jotted a message to Pat and stuck it under the windshield of his truck, then made another copy and clamped it in the screen door of the mobile home.

Socks was clearly upset, just a click on the down side of berserk, when I returned to the SUV. He wanted out of this strange cab so he could herd something. I reached back for the Thermos cap again and gave him another shot of water, but he was too distracted to enjoy it. None of this was the way his world worked, and his distress was pitiful.

As I headed out the Torrance’s driveway, my phone rang, and I snatched it off the seat, the sound and the motion setting the furry dervish off again, his tongue spray spotting the inside of the windshield, the dashboard, and my right forearm.

“Hey,” Sheriff Robert Torrez said. “Gayle said you had a question.”

“Hey yourself,” I replied. “And yes, I do. As a matter of fact, I have several questions at the moment, Robert.” Socks was headed for my lap, and I nudged him back across the center console.

“Where are you now?”

“At the moment, I’m at Herb’s ranch. Just now leaving.” I quickly explained about Dale Torrance’s adventure, and Bobby made a little grunting sound that translated as, “Why do I need to know all this?”

“Actually, my original question that I mentioned to Gayle was about the property just north of Herb’s place, but I already found out the answer to that one. That’s not what’s on my mind at the moment, either. Right now, I’m trying to find Pat Gabaldon,” I said. “I have his dog.”

“His dog?”

“Yes. His heeler.” I gave the sheriff an abbreviated version of the puzzling events up on Cat Mesa, and he listened without interruption. “I can’t imagine Pat being so careless, is all.”

“Huh,” Torrez said. “Did you check to see if he went on down 26 to cut some firewood or something like that?” Forest Road 26 ran along the rim of Cat Mesa.

“I didn’t see tracks,” I said. “I also have to admit that I didn’t look that way more than a glance.”

“Yeah, well. He might have done that. He’s still drivin’ that rig of Herb’s?”

“As far as I know.”

“Not too easy to hide that,” the sheriff reflected. “He’ll turn up. You told Collins to keep an eye out?”

“Sure.”

“And you’re keepin’ the dog?”

Concern for this fifty-pound bundle of worried muscle and slobber wasn’t surprising. Heeler pups didn’t come cheap in the first place, and the hours spent training them to do something constructive added to the investment. I had no illusion that Pat Gabaldon thought of Socks as a study in economics-the nineteen-year-old cowboy and the energetic heeler were simply pals. Had it been the dog who suffered a broken leg instead of Dale Torrance, Patrick’s world would have come to a stop.

“I guess I am,” I said. “I don’t want to leave him tied up or shut in the trailer. I doubt that Herb and Ann will be back from Cruces until late tomorrow. Maybe even later.”

“Well, suit yourself,” Torrez said, sounding characteristically unsympathetic. “Lemme know.”

“I’ll do that.” During the conversation, Socks had settled down, facing me with both front paws hanging over the center console. As I switched off the phone, he pushed himself back up, looking expectant. “It would be much, much easier if you would talk,” I said. My eyes had started to itch from dog dander, and I was ready to give Victor Sanchez another try.