Under Desert Sand

by R Lawson Gamble

  Turned out, it was easy. Julio had some experience hopping trains, and led the way. Soon they were established in an empty car with the sweet smell of wheat. They stretched out near the door to enjoy the breeze and the scenery.

  Several hours later, they saw a cluster of small dusty buildings. "Think this is it?" Col asked.

  Julio shook his head. "Remember that picture of the depot? I don't see it."

  The Union Pacific tracks paralleled a ribbon of paved road. Desert plants, yucca and cactus grew right next to the tracks; on the landscape beyond were increasingly large stands of Joshua trees. Dry as it was, they sensed they were at higher altitude. The breeze felt almost cold.

  When the train next slowed there was no doubt in their minds they had arrived at the tiny town of Kelso. The depot roof rose above other buildings, its red Spanish tile distinctive.

  The diesel engines a quarter mile ahead of their car ground to a stop. The boys jumped out. They were at the edge of town, a strange mix of deserted ghost-town buildings mingled with newer structures, with fresh paint and apparent attempts at upkeep.

  They scrambled to the road, walked through town to the depot. The road shimmered in the sun; the cracked and weed-laced sidewalk was empty. No one stirred anywhere until they reached the depot parking lot. Here, people mingled among SUVs, BMWs, and motor homes, tourists making their leisurely way across the Preserve between Interstates 15 and 40. Kelso Depot itself was a large building, a throwback to the golden age of the railroad, with an expansive multi-arched veranda facing the tracks, walls that glistened white in the sun, palm trees and emerald green grass, all in the middle of nowhere.

  Col's eyes searched the parking lot, the depot grounds. "So what now? Just walk up to someone and say, 'I'm little Bo-Peep, I've lost my sheep?'"

  "Not here. These are all tourists, they wouldn't know. The depot looks like it's a museum. Let's ask someone in there."

  An attendant glanced at their dirty, straw flaked clothing, sent them down the road west of town. "There are stockyards over there," she said. "I see cattle, horses, and such from time to time when I drive in to work. I don't remember ever seeing sheep, though."

  Outside, Julio started to cross the lawn. Col grabbed his arm, pointed to a sign. It read, "Stay off the grass. Africanized bees come to the irrigation for the water."

  "We're not in Kansas anymore," Col said. He had a feeling many things in this land might not be what they seemed.

  Just beyond the depot, the main street ended at an intersection. The road here crossed the tracks and wound off into a Joshua tree-filled valley. Beyond it Col saw the high ridges of sand dunes against the pale blue sky. The smell of horses, dust and sage came to his nose. Directly ahead was a dirt service road, a few shacks, and beyond them, Col saw fences. They went that way.

  Two horses stood in the corral. A man in a cowboy hat emerged from a shack nearby, stood in the doorway and watched them approach. "Can I help you boys?"

  "Yes, sir, we're looking for a herd of sheep," Julio said.

  "What's your name, boy?"

  "Julio Castro, sir."

  "Is Roberto Castro your uncle?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The man walked back into the shack, re-emerged with an envelope in his hand. "This is for you, then," he said. He pointed to the two horses. "Those are yours, too. The tack is in that building over there. It's got your name on it. Don't take nothin' that don't have your name on it. Sign right here, please." The man ripped out the receipt, handed it to Julio and went back into the shack.

  The boys stared at each other. Julio slit open the envelope, began to read.

  "What's it say?"

  "Uncle Roberto says the sheep are being held at a place called Circle Ranch. We have to ride over there to collect them. He's drawn a map."

  Col peered over his shoulder. The map amounted to a few inverted 'V's to signify mountains, a few squares drawn to indicate buildings, squiggly lines for streams. An arrow began at the word Kelso and pointed East with little dashes through the mountains. Col glanced up from the map, looked east at the panorama before them. A thick forest of Joshua trees stretched all the way to barren mountain ridges with sharp pinnacles thrust toward the sky. "You got to be kidding."

  Julio peeked into the envelope, brought out a slip of paper and handed it to Col. It was a check for $500. "An installment on your first paycheck," he said, grinning.

  Col looked at the wilderness around him and laughed. "What am I going to do with this?"

  "Not spend money, like we planned. Hold on a minute." Julio walked over to the shack, disappeared inside for a few minutes, returned.

  "The wrangler says there's a trail cuts through those trees to a mountain pass. It'll take us into a valley." He pointed to the squares on the map. "This here is Circle Ranch. It's in that valley next to a stream."

  "What about supplies?"

  "We just got to get there with the food we got. The letter says they'll have provisions at the ranch for us for the next couple of months."

  Col shook his head, stared at Julio. "Did I mention I've never ridden a horse before?"

  Julio chuckled. "I thought as much. Don't worry. I'll pick out the best horse for you and give you a few pointers. I don't think you'll have much trouble, the horse does all the work." He turned toward the tack building, grinning to himself. "You're gonna have a very sore arse, though."

  Col followed him to the building.

  Inside, Julio glanced around. "Bring out everything with my name on it. There's blankets, bridles, saddles. Bring all that stuff. I'll fetch the horses."

  Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, Col stared at a mountain of equipment. In addition to the tack he saw chaps, hats, bandanas, and wool shirts. There were rifles in saddle scabbards, a pair of binoculars, even belts of cartridges with holsters and pistols. "Holy shit," he whispered.

  When he returned to the corral with his first armload of equipment, Julio had a horse at the gate. "That one is yours," he said. "The wrangler says his name is Rat."

  "Rat? You picked a horse for me named Rat?"

  "He's the gentle one. I don't know where the name came from, but I bet we'll find out."

  The mountain of equipment grew near the corral until the shack had been emptied of the gear tagged for them. Then the instruction began.

  Col's first lesson was how to saddle a horse and mount it. With help from Julio, he rode Rat around the corral a few times. Next Julio packed up their horses with the gear and rifles. He showed Col how to put on the chaps and the cartridge belt. The hat was large, but Julio rigged it with rawhide string to hold it snug. "Uncle Roberto didn't know your size, so he bought all the clothing to fit me."

  Julio smiled and hummed as he worked, obviously at home with horses and the necessary paraphernalia. It was clear he enjoyed Col's bewildered attempt to transform from urban climber to cowboy."

  Once Julio was dressed and outfitted, he turned to Col and helped him mount Rat, the act made more difficult by the gear packed behind the saddle. Mounted, his feet in the stirrups, Col felt compressed like ham in a sandwich. Rat turned his head to eye him with a puzzled look.

  Julio laughed.

  "You're having a great time at my expense."

  "Well, yeah, I am." Julio mounted and led off. Rat fell in behind without any encouragement from his novice rider.

  A month of riding lessons compressed into a few hours began right then. They followed the road across the tracks and clomped along the pavement until Julio found the trailhead described in the map. They followed it up through the Joshua trees, their fuzzy green branches raised like arms as if warning them off.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tav showed up around one. He pulled up behind the Jeep, climbed out, walked over and stood with hands on hips. He eyed the small mountain of metal artifacts piled up just inside the yellow tape.

  "Jim Hatchett called sayin' people were messing with my crime scene. What the hell is that stuff?"

  Susan pointed to the metal
detector. "I've been looking for bullets."

  "Any luck?"

  "I guess it depends upon how many old can lids you want," she said, smiling. "But no bullets yet."

  Tav grunted. He looked at Zack. "Who's that over yonder with the big dog?"

  Eagle Feather and Blue were just visible among the creosote.

  "That's my friend Eagle Feather and my tracker dog, Big Blue. We want to see if there is anything more we can learn from this place." Zack stepped over the yellow tape and stood next to Tav. "We met up with Hatchett's man Bronc this morning. He seems to be keeping an eye on this place."

  Tav's eyes narrowed. "Any problems?"

  "We maybe managed to avoid one."

  Tav grunted. "The Kellogg outfit has always shown a proprietary interest in this water hole." His gaze swept across the landscape. "Seems strange, given their time here is growin' short. The government is pushin' grazing stock out as fast as possible, hoping the land will revert to how it looked prior to the ranches. Except for the Kellogg Ranch and several herds of sheep up on the high ground, they've pretty much accomplished that."

  An insistent beep from Susan's metal detector caught their attention. She'd worked her way up the slope toward the windmill. They watched as she laid the instrument aside, used a trowel to sift through the sand.

  "That's a right energetic little lady there," Tav said.

  Zack grinned. "You don't know the half of it. She's worn me to a nub." He glanced at Tav. "You mentioned some sheep. That where the dead boys came from?"

  Tav scratched his forehead, sliding his ranger-style flat brim hat back. "Likely."

  "Maybe a look up there would help to identify the boys?"

  "Been done. Butch and a couple of sheriff's deputies went up there yesterday, found an abandoned camp. They collected some personal belongings; took 'em to the sheriff's office. Forensics is working on them. We know the herd's owner; name's on the grazing lease––he's a Mexican citizen. We've begun inquiries in that direction."

  The men's eyes returned to Eagle Feather and Blue, returning through the blackbush.

  'Looks like they finished over that way," Zack said. Moments later, Big Blue came sprinting over to Zack and greeted him as if he hadn't seen him in weeks.

  "Nice lookin' dog."

  "Say howdy to Tav," Zack commanded.

  The bloodhound immediately turned to Tav, rose up on hind legs, placed both front paws on the man's shoulders and licked his face. He dropped down again to greet Eagle Feather, just coming up.

  Tav wiped his face with the inside of his shirt elbow, spit and grinned. "I swear to you, I already washed up this morning."

  Zack turned to his Navajo friend. "Eagle Feather, meet Tav Davidson."

  Tav and Eagle Feather shook hands. "Navajo, I hear?"

  Eagle Feather scrutinized him. "Zack tells me you're mostly Mojave."

  "Got a touch of Chemehuevi––and white man."

  Before he could say more Susan was there, a pleased look on her face, something clenched in her hand. Her red cheeks and shiny face framed by damp blonde hair enhanced her attractiveness, a fact apparently not lost on Tav, Zack noticed.

  "Found it."

  "What did you find?" Zack asked.

  "I found a bullet."

  All three men stared at Susan. She slowly unclenched her fist. The bullet was on her palm, perfect, no distortions from impact.

  "A third bullet," she said.

  Zack took it from her hand. "It's perfect, almost as if it was fired into a test cylinder in a forensics lab. Just a guess, but it looks like a .44 caliber."

  Tav studied the bullet. "It looks like a factory made bullet." He looked over Susan's head to the neat hole she'd dug in the sandy hillside. "You found it over there?"

  She nodded, blue eyes glistening.

  Zack studied the scene from the yellow tags where the victims had been to the sandy slope. "That was a wild shot, if the boys were trying to hit each other."

  "If that slope hadn't been there for a backstop, you never would have found the bullet," Eagle Feather said.

  "I know." Susan shrugged. "It confirms one of the victims fired his weapon toward the other. It also confirms there was a third weapon, since we now have three bullets but the boys fired just one bullet each."

  "So what was going on? If they were shooting at each other, one missed badly, yet both ended up dead with a hole in the middle of the forehead. You got one modern bullet and one homemade bullet fired in the same direction, but the homemade bullet kills the boy." Zack wiped sweat from his brow, looked at Eagle Feather. "Did you and Blue learn anything to help us out here?"

  "I'll tell you what I know." Eagle Feather squatted and drew some lines in the sand. "This is where the boys stood when they fired their weapons. Blue and I just backtracked them over to here." He drew a longer line at right angles to the position of the two boys, then back across toward the tree. "Seems they rode in together, side-by-side from the direction of that mesa, tied their horses way over at that fence, then walked down to the windmill. They'd come down here at least one other time. It's hard to tell which prints came from their most recent trip. We had to untangle 'em from other riders who came in the same way." He glanced down at the bloodhound at Zack's feet. "Blue helped out with that."

  Zack turned to Tav. "Which direction is the sheep camp?"

  Tav pointed. "Up beyond that mesa, sure enough."

  "So they likely came down from there." Zack glanced at Eagle Feather. "Anything else?"

  "Blue caught another scent, followed it to the tree, but I don't know what it was."

  Eagle Feather shrugged.

  "After that, we walked back over to the where I saw the reflection from our man Bronc. Tracks showed where he hunkered down there, left his horse in the gully behind." Eagle Feather pointed. "It is not very far. I checked the line of sight; it offered a clear view of this whole area, including where the bodies were." Eagle Feather raised an eyebrow at Zack.

  Zack's brow creased. "I'm not sure how that helps us."

  "Just sayin'."

  Tav turned to Eagle Feather. "If you're suggesting one or both boys had been ambushed with a rifle, it seems to me a rifle bullet would have done a lot more damage."

  Zack shook his head. "We thought of that. I checked it out. Seems a .44 caliber bullet is a .44 caliber bullet, whether fired from a pistol at 10 yards, or a rifle at 200 yards. There is no acceleration or de-acceleration to speak of past a certain point, so we can't rule out a third person with a rifle."

  Susan handed the bullet to Zack. "I'll go get the metal detector." She turned away.

  Zack called after her. "Flag that hole, would you, please? My kit is in the Jeep."

  She waved a hand.

  "What now?" Tav asked.

  Zack rubbed his chin. "I think we should go up to that sheep camp, let Blue sniff around a bit."

  Tav shrugged. "If these bodies were the shepherd boys, those sheep will be all to hell and gone by now."

  Eagle Feather shook his head. "Maybe not. Sheep have a strong herd instinct, and the boys likely kept a dog or two."

  "True enough."

  There was a cry from Susan. They looked up. She had dug a second hole, was kneeling over it, the metal detector on the ground next to her. She held up a clenched hand. "I found another bullet."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At Susan's shout, Zack went over to her. He peered at the second hole in the sand, just a few feet from the first.

  He removed his hat, scratched his head. "Four bullets, just two boys, just two shots fired from their guns. I think we can rule out double suicide for good at this point. What kind of bullet is it?"

  Susan handed it to him. "It looks just like the other one."

  "Looks to me like another factory produced .44 caliber bullet." Zack turned, looked behind him. "It could only have come from one place."

  Susan nodded. "The second victim."

  "So..." Zack studied the positions marked by yellow tags where the
two murdered boys were found. "They both fired at something over here, not at each other."

  Susan's eyes narrowed in excitement. "Exactly. We assumed they were fighting a duel because the location of their bodies gave that impression. It might not have happened that way at all. Maybe they happened to be in those two places for some other reason entirely when something threatening appeared here and both boys shot at it."

  Zack's mind raced with possibilities. "The timing could be quite different from what we inferred. They weren't necessarily killed right at the moment they fired; they could have been shot later. In fact, one could have been shot well before the other."

  Zack met Eagle Feather and Tav on their way over. He dropped the bullet in Tav's hand.

  "The only thing not changed with the discovery of these bullets is the position of the bodies," Eagle Feather said. He studied the ground upslope from Susan's holes. "Whatever they shot at left no trace, unless they were extremely poor shots."

  "Might have been a rattlesnake in that clump of brush over there," Tav said, pointing. "There's your motive for shooting, and the bullets didn't land so far off the mark in that case."

  "That's as good as any other explanation right now," Zack said. "Well, this certainly shakes things up." He smiled at Susan. "Your idea of the metal detector was a good one."

  Tav added, almost smiling, "Good work."

  Susan might have blushed; Zack couldn't tell with her color already heightened by the heat.

  "If we are done congratulating one another, maybe we ought to go take a look at the sheep camp." Eagle Feather had already turned toward the Jeep where Blue was stretched across the rear seat, enjoying the shade.

  Zack turned to follow. "You coming?" he asked Tav.

  "I'll lead the way with my truck."

  "I'll ride with Tav." Susan glanced at him. "If you don't mind..."

  "Sure, come along." Tav said.

  Zack started up the Jeep, waited for Tav to turn the big SUV around.

  Eagle Feather watched. "Something going on there?"

  Zack smiled. "With Susan, you never know."

  Eagle Feather grinned.