Hanging Falls

by Margaret Mizushima

  A family who’d been seated at a four-top rose from their seats, the mother and kids heading outside while the father came to the cash register.

  Ned hurried back to his spot behind the bar, settled the man’s bill, and turned to Mattie. “It’s starting to get busy.”

  Mattie glanced at the Perry brothers and noticed that they were mopping up egg from their plates with their toast. Time for her to move on. She laid a few dollars on the bar along with her business card and lowered her voice to speak. “Ned, Luke Ferguson was found dead a couple days ago up at Hanging Falls. I wanted you to hear it from me. It’s not a secret, but you might keep it under your hat and listen to what the town grapevine has to say.”

  His brows had risen with surprise.

  “I’ll leave my business card and number,” Mattie said. “If you hear anything that might help us with our investigation, give me a call.”

  Ned picked up her card and slipped it into his jeans pocket. “Will do,” he murmured. “I’m sorry about the kid. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  Mattie nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  She lifted her hand in farewell, slid off her stool, and walked over to where the Perry brothers were starting to lay down their napkins and scoot back their chairs. Neither seemed to have seen her coming, and they both looked up in surprise, their shaggy gray eyebrows raised, when she stopped beside their table.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Perry.” Mattie looked at one brother and then nodded to the other. “Mr. Perry. I’m Deputy Cobb, and I need just a few minutes of your time before you leave.”

  Both rose from their seats as she introduced herself, and the taller one gestured to a free chair at their table. After Mattie sat, they followed suit.

  “I’m Keith, and he’s Kevin,” the taller one said, first tapping his own chest and then pointing to his brother. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “I want to ask you a few questions about a young man named Luke Ferguson.”

  “Who?” Keith asked, apparently the older and the spokesperson of the two.

  “Luke Ferguson, a young man that moved in with the people who bought property near yours.”

  Recognition dawned on both faces, Kevin’s an open book while Keith rapidly shut his expression down to neutral.

  “We don’t know those folks, but we know who you’re talking about,” Keith said, caution evident in his tone. “What about him?”

  Mattie kept her eye on the younger one’s face, since he seemed to be giving the most away. “I heard he had an altercation with you two a few weeks ago.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened, and he looked down at his plate.

  “What? Who’d you hear that from?” Keith asked.

  Kevin’s reaction told her she was on the right track. Mattie stayed silent but leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table as she shifted her gaze to Keith.

  Keith maintained steady eye contact. “Who said?”

  “What can you tell me about it?” Mattie responded.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to tell.” Keith clamped his lips together.

  Mattie fixed her gaze on Kevin, who fidgeted and stared at his empty plate, taking furtive glances at her beneath lowered eyelids.

  “Is he gonna press charges?” Kevin asked, raising his eyes to blink a few times. “What did he say?”

  “Kevin …” Keith sounded a warning.

  Kevin looked at him. “We gotta tell our side of the story. We didn’t really hurt the guy.”

  “Zip it, Kevin.” Keith gave his brother a squelching look.

  “All we did was give him a little tap in the breadbasket,” Kevin muttered. “The guy was pretty soft.”

  “Why did you do that?” Mattie asked Kevin.

  “I don’t know. He was drinking and getting loud, carrying on. Just got on my nerves,” Kevin replied before Keith could shush him.

  “Dadburn it, Kevin, keep your mouth shut,” Keith said to his brother. And then to Mattie, “The kid couldn’t hold his liquor, and he was obnoxious. This bar is our place on Saturday nights, and we were just giving him a warning to shape up.”

  Mattie gave him one of her stern looks. “Assault is a serious charge. If you have a concern about rowdiness, tell it to the bartender. Don’t take it on yourselves.”

  “Is the kid saying we assaulted him? We barely tapped him.”

  Mattie studied them both for their reaction to her next statement. “Assault is especially serious when the victim shows up dead a few weeks later.”

  Kevin’s brows shot up. “What are you talking about? The kid’s dead?”

  Mattie nodded as she focused on Keith. No surprise on his face, merely a frown of concern.

  “How did the kid die?” Keith asked, leaning forward to stare at Mattie.

  “We’re investigating his death as a homicide.”

  “Well, we had nothing to do with that.” Keith kept his voice low but filled with fury as he pushed his chair back and stood, towering above her with clenched fists. “And you can’t blame us for it neither. Come on, Kevin, let’s go home.” He turned on his heel and stalked toward the door, turning midstride to cross over to the cash register to pay the bill.

  Mattie examined his boots—rounded toe with a low, square heel.

  Kevin rose from his chair, giving her a look at his footwear, which was identical to his brother’s. “We had nothing to do with killing that kid, Deputy Cobb.”

  Mattie stood and handed him her business card. “Assaulting an individual often leads to other violence, Mr. Perry, so we have to determine if you’re involved in this or not. If you want to contact me, here’s my number. Don’t go anywhere in the next few days. We’ll be in touch again.”

  Stiff lipped, Kevin stuffed the card into the back pocket of his jeans and followed his brother outside.

  Mattie trailed behind, stopping on the sidewalk to watch the two climb into their beat-up old pickup and drive away. Stella needed to follow up and interview these two later.

  She checked her cell phone for the time before hurrying to her unit, where Robo was waiting for her. Their next two persons of interest were due at the station, and she’d better get a move on.

  TWENTY

  When Cole and the kids arrived at the Vaughn place, it looked like a rodeo. A sorrel horse raced around the pasture outside the corrals, darting and bucking while men chased it. As he drew near, he could differentiate the men’s faces and realized that Keith and Kevin Perry were on foot out in the pasture as well as several men who lived on the place, Isaac King and Solomon Vaughn included.

  “Looks like they’ve got a horse loose,” he said to Angie and Riley as he drove slowly up the lane.

  “Isn’t that the stallion we worked on yesterday?” Angie asked, noting what Cole had already concluded.

  “Sure is.” Cole parked outside the barn. “You girls go right to the Vaughn house and stay inside until we get this horse caught.”

  “Be careful, Dad,” Angie said, a concerned look on her face that did Cole’s heart good.

  He smiled at her. “I’m always careful, Angel.”

  She made a sound of disagreement but opened the door on her side of the truck and climbed out, folding her seat forward so that Riley could exit the bench seat in the back.

  “Be careful, Dr. Walker,” Riley said over her shoulder as the two girls hurried away.

  Cole grabbed a halter out of the mobile vet unit in back and headed around the corner of the barn to the pasture. He followed the men’s voices until he spotted them. They were shouting at each other while the sorrel trotted freely around the periphery of the horse runs outside the barn.

  Several mares inside the runs were squealing and pawing the ground, while one beautiful chestnut mare reared and struck out with her forelegs at the panel that separated her from the stallion. Cole sprinted toward the mare and shooed her away from the fence before she caught her leg between the rails.

  He looked toward the others for help, but they were oblivious to him
and the restless mares. Kevin Perry looked mad as a stout grizzly, squared off in front of Isaac King with his hands on his hips.

  “What in tarnation are you doin’ with that whip?” Kevin was shouting, his face red from his efforts. “If you go back inside the barn and leave this horse be, I can catch him.”

  “He’s on our property. I’ll do what I want with him!” Isaac glared at the older man as he shook a long black buggy whip in the air. “And you’re trespassing! Get off our land!”

  “Colorado is a fence-out state!” Keith Perry had joined the chaos, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother. “If you want to keep animals off your property, build a fence around it.”

  Throwing his hands up toward the mare one last time to shoo her inside the box stall at the end of her run, Cole strode toward the knot of angry men. “Hold up,” he yelled as he narrowed the distance between them. “Stop this before someone gets hurt!”

  While the others glared at each other, none of them backing down, Cole made eye contact with Solomon and tried to enlist some help. “Solomon, you need to put those mares inside their box stalls before one of them breaks a leg.”

  Isaac cracked the whip. “If that stallion causes any damage to one of our mares, I’ll kill him.”

  By this time, Cole had reached the group and waded into the center, getting between the Perry brothers and the rest of the men. “If we work together to solve this problem, your mares will be okay.” He scanned the angry faces, picking out the men he’d already met. “Ephraim, Abel, go help Solomon secure those mares inside their box stalls. Isaac, put that whip away.”

  Isaac turned on Cole, fury consuming his face, his hand raised in a fist. “The wrath of God shall strike down those who trespass.”

  Cole lifted both of his open palms toward Isaac and spoke in a reasonable way. “Uh-uh. As I recall, the passage says we forgive those who trespass against us. Now, cool down and help get this situation under control. All we’ve got here is a horse running loose. Easy enough to take care of.”

  Isaac snarled. “That horse is the devil.”

  “He’s a stallion and that chestnut mare of yours is in heat,” Cole said. “Not a devil, just a stud horse doing what comes naturally. He could probably smell her a half mile away, which is just about the distance he came from.”

  The men Cole had told to secure the mares hadn’t yet moved. Out of the corner of his eye, Cole saw the stallion, head up and nostrils flared, circling the area as if plotting his next blitz on the mare’s pen.

  “Isaac, we need to get those mares taken care of.” Cole waved his hand toward the stallion. “Once they’re penned inside, we can corral this one, get a lead rope on him, and get him off your property. But if we all stand around here shouting at each other, this isn’t going to end well.”

  The others seemed to be waiting for Isaac to tell them what to do. The mare trumpeted a shrill whinny, making Cole turn on his heel and run toward the fence to head her off as she rushed it. “I need some help here,” he called to the men.

  Ephraim, followed by Abel, broke loose from the others and hurried after Cole, each of them going to the outside gate of a different run where they could let themselves in to push the mares inside the barn. Cole opened the gate that led into the chestnut mare’s run and slipped inside, pulling the gate shut behind him. But Solomon, who’d evidently decided to help, caught the gate before it closed and followed Cole inside. Together they formed a human barrier and pressed the excited mare back through the narrow run and into her box stall, where they secured the solid door so that she couldn’t get out.

  “Let’s leave this gate open to the run,” Cole said to Solomon as he glanced back to where Isaac was still in a standoff with the Perry brothers. “If you can get Isaac to settle down, Kevin Perry should be able to catch his stud horse and lead him away.”

  Solomon raised his brow but didn’t reply. “Leave the outside gates open,” he shouted to Ephraim and Abel as they finished penning the other mares inside. “Then stand back to let the stallion go into one of these runs.”

  Realizing that Solomon would follow through with his plan, Cole strode back over to the other men. “Kevin, Keith, come with me and we’ll see if we can move Rojo into one of these runs. The rest of you, stay still and be quiet.”

  Cole figured that removing the Perry brothers would defuse Isaac’s anger. Kevin came away first, winding up his lead rope and looping it around his shoulder, where it would be less conspicuous to the stallion. Throwing one last hard glare at Isaac, Keith followed his brother.

  Isaac raised the whip handle in a threatening move toward Keith’s back, and Cole quickly stepped up to intervene. He felt a rush of anger at the hardheaded man. “Isaac!” Cole pointed at the front of the barn. “Go inside and tend to your mares. Get that whip out of sight so this stud horse will settle down.”

  The sorrel continued pacing and circling while Solomon left the row of pens and approached Isaac. He murmured a few words that evidently made Isaac lower the whip. Tall and ramrod straight, he and Solomon stalked toward the front of the barn, and the other men closed ranks to follow them. Ephraim and Abel backed away from the pens and joined the Perrys and Cole to form a loose semicircle around the stallion.

  With a snort and a head toss, the horse rushed over to the run outside the chestnut mare’s box stall and trotted through the open gate and into the pen. Cole hurried to secure the gate while the stallion snorted and reared outside the box stall door.

  A wave of relief washed over Cole when the gate clicked into place. But getting this horse corralled was only half the battle. The stallion wore a leather halter, and it shouldn’t be too hard to clip on a lead rope, but Cole had already seen this horse in action. He began to wonder if it might not need to be tranquilized.

  Kevin slipped between the panel rails and began to speak to the stallion in a low croon. He put his hand into his jeans pocket and retrieved a piece of cake, sweet horse feed pressed into a bite-sized nugget. Kevin offered the cake but didn’t try to approach the horse. Instead, he stood still and sideways, avoiding a full-front exposure, which the stallion might take as a threat or a challenge.

  Rojo ignored him at first but gradually quit rearing and striking out at the air. Kevin’s crooning seemed to calm the stallion, and he started pacing in circles near the box stall door, clearly more interested in the mare inside the barn than the cake Kevin held outstretched in his hand.

  Slowly, Kevin sidled up to the horse, murmuring reassurance. Cole held his breath. The sound of heavy doors opening and closing came from within the barn, and Cole hoped that Isaac and Solomon had decided to help and were moving the mares over to the other side of the barn.

  When Rojo settled, Cole decided that someone must have indeed moved the chestnut mare away from the door. Within a few minutes, Kevin was able to step sideways to the stallion’s shoulder and stroke his glossy, arched neck. And when Rojo was offered the cake again, this time he took it, while Kevin snapped the lead rope onto the halter in a smooth, subtle movement. The horse snorted a bit but moved around Kevin in a restless circle while the man continued to stroke his neck and croon. Cole had expected the type of behavior he’d observed yesterday—pawing, biting, and striking—but instead he was observing the reaction of any nervous and excited stud horse.

  Cole thought Kevin’s display of horsemanship had been masterful. “Good job, Kevin,” he murmured. “He’s a different horse from yesterday.”

  “We spent the day and night together, didn’t we?” Kevin crooned to the horse. “Come to an understanding.”

  Keith, who’d been watching from outside the pen, wore a look of pride. “Ain’t no horse that Kevin can’t tame.”

  Cole was still concerned. “That may be so, but how are you going to get him home?”

  “I can lead him,” Kevin said. “As long as these idiots stay away from us and don’t get him riled up.”

  Ephraim and Abel were standing well within hearing distance, so Cole tried to
dampen the tension. “You two go on home, then. You’ll have to make sure he can’t get out again.”

  “I know the fence he broke through,” Keith said, opening the gate for his brother. “We’ll make sure it gets shored up.”

  And without another word to Ephraim or Cole, Kevin led the horse away from the barn at a brisk pace, the red stallion trotting at his side, his hips flaring outward with an occasional side step until Kevin calmly moved him back into place, always heading forward.

  Cole watched them leave, still amazed at the transformation. He turned to Ephraim and Abel. “Thanks for stepping up to help. Livestock crossing fences is common enough.”

  Ephraim harrumphed before answering. “Until one of our valuable mares gets hurt because of an untrained horse that no one can catch.”

  “Well, we prevented that today because you and Abel were quick to react.” Cole decided to move on to the reason he was here. “Let me check on your gelding with the cracked hoof, and then I’ll be on my way.”

  Ephraim turned on his heel and led the way around the barn to the entrance.

  Cole could tell that bad blood had developed between these neighbors and wondered if there was anything he could do about it. Probably not. Keith and Isaac were the leaders in this clash, two men as hardheaded as he’d ever seen.

  He wondered if he should alert Mattie to the skirmish. Surely the Perry brothers had had nothing to do with Luke Ferguson’s death, but you never knew when these wars between neighbors would escalate.

  Eager to check on the horse and take the girls back home, he followed Ephraim to the barn.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There were two unfamiliar vehicles in the station’s parking lot, one of them a truck with Randolph Farrier Services stenciled on the front door. At least one of the two men had arrived for his interview, and the other vehicle possibly belonged to Parker Tate.