"I made a mistake," he said. "I left some important things undone." "Here?" Lily asked hopefully.
Jake could see the eager expectation in her eyes, and he didn’t want her misled. "It's with your father, Lily."
Lily's smile evaporated. "With my father?" she repeated slowly. "You're not here to cause trouble, are you Jake?"
"No, ma'am," he said. "You might say I'm here to head it off." "What do you mean?"
Jake shook his head. "Maybe it's something your father can talk to you about, someday."
Lily didn't like Jake's words, the child's status they conferred upon her. It wasn't the way she wanted him to think of her. She continued moving around the living room, skirting the perimeter in a way that kept obstacles between her and Jake. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she said, a little hurt.
"I guess I could say the same."
Lily worked up a sweet expression, but it dropped as suddenly as it had appeared. She could feel the distance between them, and that Jake wasn't going to make any effort to bridge it. If he wasn't here to be with her, she reasoned, then there was only one other possibility. "Are you back out at Mr. Parker's place . . . with Tory?"
Jake gave an uncomfortable nod, indicating that he was. "For good?" Lily asked.
Jake averted his eyes at the question, then meekly looked at her and said, "I guess I hope I am."
Lily stood on the other side of a table, face lighted by the lamp that sat thereon, bathing her in a soft yellow glow. She looked almost ghostly, which matched the feeling she had that she and Jake were dimensions apart, separated in some way they had never been before, and that she couldn't understand. She wanted to run to his arms, as she had a hundred previous times, because somehow it had been easy to be that way with him.
He had been like a huge stuffed animal to her, willing to hold and shelter her as she faced fear and doubt about her coming adulthood. Even their lovemaking had been gentle, a safe passage along the way in her voyage from girl to womanhood. He had been a covered bridge, somehow providing proof that in years ahead there could be other such men, who were gentle and kind, sensitive to her in ways she had never known as a child. It had given her strength to believe that the future could be better than the past. Being with Jake had done that for her. Now she felt this gulf between them, and she recognized that from this man she had one final lesson to learn: that things happen in their time, and times pass.
"I miss you Jake," Lily said. "It seems like that's all I ever say."
Jake looked into her eyes. They were beautiful, clear and fresh, and looking into them almost made him reach out to her, but Jake knew that now she was no longer in reach. He could never be with her again. "I'm gonna miss you too, Lily," he said softly, easing both of them to an understanding.
The sounds of heavy footsteps were heard on the staircase, and both Jake and Lily turned to see Frank coming down the steps. He paused about half-way down, when he saw the two of them, standing not too far apart. "Ben Miller's here," he said gruffly, then he walked the rest of the way down the staircase.
Lily turned and looked again at Jake, their eyes meeting in a silent communication that was both sincere and desperate. Frank saw the way they were looking at each other and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, saying nothing.
Suddenly Lily burst into tears and ran from the living room, racing past her father and on up the stairs to the second floor, stopping once along the way to cast one more glance at Jake – the last time she ever expected to see him in her home.
Frank saw the look and the hair rose at the back of his neck. He glanced back at Jake, who looked lost and vulnerable as he watched Lily disappear to the second floor. Frank wanted to say something, to ask what violation Jake had committed against his daughter now, but Ben Miller's loud knock upon the front door interrupted the impulse.
* * * * *
"I think if you dig down a little right there, you'll find what you're looking for," Jake said.
"What the hell is this?" Ben Miller asked, confounded. "It feels like I'm walking on Jell-O."
Jake, Sheriff Miller and Frank Walker had driven for more than an hour on back roads, until finally they had reached a desolate strip of land thirty miles to the west of Longmont. "What are we looking for?" Frank had asked along the way, but Jake had just said, "You'll see." It was well after nine o'clock when they reached the site.
The night was pitch black and there was a trace chill in the air. A high cloud cover partially blocked the light of the moon, as the temperature hovered in the mid-forties. Jake had instructed the others to bring flashlights and shovels, and then steered them to this isolated spot in the countryside. They parked out on the county road, outside a fence gate, then hiked a good half-mile in to private property, making their way along a little-used field road. Along the way, Jake had shown his flashlight on the trail, occasionally noting fresh tire tracks. "These are from last night," he told them, an observation based not on his skills as a tracker, but on arcane knowledge of "the plan." "It's already begun," he said.
They were on property owned by Ferrel Edmunds, a Weld County native who ran a medium-sized stocker operation. This was his pasture land, situated more than ten miles away from his house, where he kept nearly two hundred head of Hereford steers. It was exactly the type of situation favored by Pico and his mobile slaughter operation: remote not only from the owner's house, but from all other heavily trafficked routes as well. Jake had spotted the site himself, learning of Edmund's operation early in his employment at Walker Ranch. He and Py had worked in this area one day, picking up bales of first cut hay, which Frank Walker had purchased from a neighbor with property in the area. Jake had seen the Edmunds herd, grazing on gently sloping hills that, at one place, dropped off into a steep canyon. He had stopped his fully loaded flatbed along the road on a return trip to Walker Ranch. Py had been napping in the cab, exhausted from having loaded seven tiers of early season green bales, and hadn't given two hoots when Jake told him he was just stopping to "take a piss." He'd been gone thirty minutes, but Py was still sleeping like a babe when he returned, completely unaware of what had transpired. In that time, Jake had gathered all the information he needed to relay to Pico's planners about the site: the access, the best out-of-sight spot to set up portable pens and a makeshift abattoir, and the best route for driving steers into the holding area. It was perfect in every aspect. Jake figured they could take forty head in one night, and it might be a week before the lone-cowboy Edmunds realized he had cattle missing.
"See this?" Jake had said, stopping along the way as they walked back in to Edmunds' property. He had shined his flashlight on deep tire tracks in soft dirt. "The truck that made these tracks carried a small caterpillar. There's a gypsy dirt moving outfit calling themselves Durst Construction working out of Lyons who uses small cats. Check it out."
Frank had looked at Ben Miller, shining his flashlight in his face. "What the hell is going on here?" he'd asked, growing more and more impatient. "You'll see," Jake said, answering on the Sheriff's behalf. "Come on," he'd instructed, and the men had continued on their trek.
Now they stood on dirt that seemed dry, yet moved beneath their feet as if they were walking on a bladder. "Put a spade in here," Jake said. "You'll find what you're lookin' for."
Frank looked questioningly at Ben Miller, who glanced once at Jake before punching his shovel into the ground, using one foot to drive it deep into the oozing soil. He removed one spade full, then a second and a third, and then Frank, shining his flashlight on the developing hole, noticed something strange. "What in the hell . . ." The bottom of the hole seemed to slowly fill with a deep black sledge and steam rose up out of the ground. "Take a little more dirt," Jake instructed, and the Sheriff dug down a little farther, as a sickening, thick odor wafted up from the excavation. Then the Sheriff removed a shovel full that came out in a greasy glob that clung to his spade and connected, in some way, to whatever lie beneath that spongy terrain.
Frank Walker
shined his flashlight into the hole to see what Ben Miller had, and what he saw was deep red and slimy. "What the hell is it?" he said, putting one finger under his nostrils to protect against the putrid smell.
"Entrails," Jake said. "Cattle were slaughtered here, just last night."
CHAPTER 39 – Setting the Trap
Ben Miller decided that it was best that they not talk to Ferrell Edmunds about what they had found on his property. He was busy arranging a net around Lorenz Pico's entire operation and he didn't want word to get out that might jeopardize the sting. It wasn't an easy decision to make, because he now had proof that what Jake was saying was true, and that meant that every night this week another area rancher was going to be losing livestock. Jake supplied the list of locations, and for the next three nights Ben Miller and Art Fowler, his senior deputy, set up surveillance of the clandestine slaughter operations. What they witnessed astonished them both.
Hiking back into remote sites, the Sheriff and his deputy watched as Pico's crews worked under cover of night, using a small caterpillar, which they brought in on a large paneled truck, to dig a shallow pit. They would then set up portable panels, into which men on foot would herd up to fifty bawling cattle. Ben Miller had served in the war, and he could only compare what he was seeing to a covert military operation. Light standards were erected around the slaughter pit, but before the powerful lamps were lit a black, opaque canvas was arranged like a tent over the entire arena. When the lights, powered by portable generators, were turned on, they illuminated the abattoir from four sides, yet spilled no light whatsoever into the surrounding area. There wasn't even a glow around what they were doing. A passerby, using the county road, a quarter mile in the distance, would never know anyone was out there, working cattle. The operation was efficient and incredibly silent, save for the bawling of the animals, which was not so extreme that it would likely be heard, or raise suspicions. Even the generators were housed, so that the sound of their gas powered engines amounted to not more than a background hum. The Sheriff watched as, one by one, steers were led stupidly into the pit, stunned with a sledge hammer, hoisted and bled, and then dismembered with alarming speed. "These guys are good," was all he could say, whispering to his compatriot, as they lay on their bellies, on the ridge above the site, looking down upon the operation. "Damned good," the deputy said.
At one point, the lawmen had to retreat from their surveillance when several of Pico's operatives walked the ridge around the site, apparently patrolling to make certain their work was not being observed. They appeared to be carrying high powered rifles, and when Miller and his fellow law officer saw one of them headed their direction, they began crawling backwards on their bellies, moving as quickly as they could away from the scene. Retreating in the dark they came upon a rattlesnake, surprised by their intrusion as it went about its nocturnal hunt for food. They never saw the reptile, but knew that it was close, for they could hear its anxious tale rattling as they lay in the darkness, keeping as still as they could. Pico’s guard appeared on the ridge before them, not forty feet from where they were, and they were relieved when his appearance seemed to divert the snake. It ceased its rattling and slinked away into the darkness, moving away from the gun-toting man, who appeared only as a dark silhouette against the night sky. Miller's deputy tried to spot the serpent, so he could avoid coming within its striking range should further retreat be required, but he never did actually see it. It was nerve-racking, just knowing it was out there somewhere, but when it became safe to leave their position, Miller and his deputy did so, sneaking back to the ridge for one last look before withdrawing to the county road. They had decided not to raid the slaughter sites, determining that to do so would jeopardize the larger operation. They had a vague sense, from what Jake had told them, of where the carcasses were being taken. What they didn't know they hoped to find out from confiscating records of the ring leaders at the time of the mass arrests. They had hoped to at least get license plate numbers from the vehicles involved in the slaughter operation, but at this they were unsuccessful. The best they could record was descriptions.
On Wednesday, prior to the scheduled assault on Walker Ranch, Sheriff Miller contacted the FBI's regional office in Denver and filed a report on what he had learned thus far, and what he expected to take place on the weekend. He told them he had a volunteer informant and he proposed a plan for springing a trap on the perpetrators for the upcoming Saturday night.
Miller's plan was to maintain a low profile, avoiding any activities that might tip off Pico's men about what the authorities were planning. Jake was supposed to continue his regular routine at Parker Ranch, maintaining whatever contact was expected of him with Pico's man on-site, whose name was still unknown to him. The equipment heists and the burglary of Walker property, was scheduled to coincide with the Cow-Cutter's Ball, when Walker's cowboys were all expected to be attending festivities in Longmont. Jake had already shown Sheriff Miller the locations of the mechanics and paint shops, which would be used to quickly transform the stolen vehicles and equipment into distributable items. These activities were mostly taking place in large, remote Quonset buildings in the Fort Morgan area. There were three such sites, two leased from area farmers who were under the impression they were going to be used for equipment storage sheds. Arrangements for those had been made through a heavy equipment contractor, who had won a legitimate bid to do road work in the area, and expected to have implements in the county for most of the next year. There was a third site, on an abandoned farm less than a mile from Longmont, which had been leased from a guy named Verle Dent. He was a nefarious character, known to astonishingly few Longmont residents, with a long record of trouble with the law. He didn't live on the property, residing instead in a boarding house in town, and when he was approached with a lease offer, in a Longmont pool hall, he didn't ask questions about what his buildings were going to be used for. It was a short-term deal that promised immediate cash money, and that's all he cared about.
On Thursday, Ben Miller drove to Denver to meet with federal agents. He disclosed what he had discovered about operations in Weld County, and at that point the investigation and planned sting were ceded to the federal authorities. "We know all about Mr. Pico," Agent Thomas Bickering told Sheriff Miller. The FBI had an extensive file on him and, because Pico was involved in interstate activities, Ben Miller was informed that the investigation was a federal matter. The agents also informed Miller that they knew all about Jake Jobbs, and they gave him some background information on his informant.
Miller sat stunned as he listened to the list of offenses committed by the man who had blown the whistle on Lorenz Pico's empire. "I'm sorry to hear about all this," he said. "I kinda like the guy." "Well, as an informant for the federal government, he'll get some consideration when he comes up for sentencing," Agent Bickering told him. "He's going to do time, though. I don't think there's any doubt about that. We've been watching Pico for a while, and from what you've told us this guy Jobbs may by tied into another half-dozen grand felonies, from Ohio to Texas." Bickering asked Ben Miller what he thought the chances were that Jake would get cold feet and run before Saturday night. "Zero," Miller told them. "He says Pico has a man in the area who has threatened revenge on people in the Longmont area should Jake not go through with the plan. Jake's involved with a real nice family in Longmont, and I don't see him doing anything that could cause them harm. I think he sees a chance to turn his life around. I think he's resigned to some pain over all this, but I don't see him blowing what may be a chance for him to start over clean." "So you trust him?" Bickering asked. "I trust him," Ben Miller told him.
Sheriff Miller's assurances weren't enough for the FBI. They wanted to talk to Jake directly, and the following day Agent Bickering showed up at Parker Ranch, driving a battered old Ford pickup and dressed as a farmer. Ben Miller contacted Jake, forewarning him of the visit. When Bickering showed up, Jake was waiting for him. "Is there someplace we can talk in private?" he asked. "
We can talk here," Jake said, inviting him into the living room.
Tory had gone to Longmont, to pick up supplies, and Pete and Py were both tending to the yearling herd. Jake and Bickering had the house to themselves.
"Jake, I want you to know that the government appreciates your coming forth with the information you've given us thus far," said Bickering, seated on the couch, wearing a pair of properly aged overalls, a plaid work shirt, and round-toed boots. With his Midwestern looks, he made a reasonable facsimile of a farm boy. "I also want to thank you for the help you've provided in setting things up for Saturday night. It'll all be considered when your case goes before the courts." Jake sat before him, head tilted down, like a guilty man facing sentencing. "I would like to have you answer some questions, for our records." "That's fine," Jake said. "And I'd like to discuss how we are going to handle this on Saturday."
The plan was simple. Pico's heists were going to be allowed to happen. Agents from the FBI would be positioned around the three sites where stolen vehicles and equipment and other items were scheduled to be "processed." Once the stolen property was delivered to those sites – which was expected to take place by midnight on Saturday – the agents would launch coordinated raids. For his part, Jake was expected to be onsite at Frank Walker's home, carrying out his assignment, emptying the safe of valuables – primarily cash and jewelry – and collecting several other targeted items. Frank's gun collection was already spoken for, as were some top-of-the-line oriental rugs and several pieces of fine silver. He was scheduled to deliver these to the buildings leased from Verle Dent, arriving on schedule as if everything was proceeding as planned. He would be among those taken into custody when the FBI dropped their net over the operation. It was understood that Jake would testify as a government informant, but for his protection the agency wanted to avoid any activity that might blow his cover prior to the Saturday night sting. Jake had also given them information on Thomas Larsen and Wynn Frye, Pico's "managers" in Denver. The FBI had checked with the Glenwood Crest, the small Denver hotel that was their last known place of residence, and discovered that Danny Votalo and William Holts, the aliases they were registered under, were no longer in residence.
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