by D C Young
“There’s no way that was cut out of the fence without my guys noticing,” Earnie said defensively.
“It is what it is, Earnie. But it wasn’t their fault. Someone slipped them something and they weren’t themselves that night,” I replied, offering the best explanation I could without outright telling those men that someone put a spell on the cowboys that night.
Honestly, I don’t even know for sure what happened to those men that night myself.
I tried not to make too much of a show of it as I delivered a swift kick to a post in the fence. Both Earnie and the detective’s mouths fell open as the post and a whole section of fence fell flat onto the ground revealing the opening the cows had been led through.
I remounted my horse and walked him through the opening out into the grassland until I found the trampled trail that led to the temporary corral and then on to the Caldera Ranch. There was so much more I could have told Detective Massey at that point… about the new shed, Oscar Valencia and the re-branding… but I’d worked with the police enough to know that the physical evidence I was showing him would be more effective in getting the man the search warrant he would need to find everything I had already seen for myself.
In an instant, Detective Massey knew exactly what he was looking at. He pulled out his phone and called for backup. Within an hour, there was a crime scene investigation team in the valley gathering as much evidence of the rustling as they could find.
***
“Goddammit!” Bill cursed as he pulled the binoculars from his eyes. “It’s the fucking Sheriff’s department.”
From the top of the ridge, he could see everything up and down the valley floor for miles. Nothing moved down there without him spotting it. He’d been on the lookout for coyote hanging around to hassle the herd coming in from pasture but instead he’d found the police and Earnest Cumber hot on his and Juanita’s trail. He jumped onto the back of his horse and made a beeline for the ranch to warn her of what was happening.
When he arrived at the stable, Juanita was in Ivory’s stall brushing the horse down.
“Juanita, I gotta talk to you urgently!” Bill cried as he came through the barn doors.
“Why? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I was just up on the ridge looking out for those wild dogs that have been hassling the herd when I saw the sheriff’s department poking around in the valley.” His eyes were wild and he was flailing his hands all over the place. “They’re on to us! You gotta get outta here. Quick!”
“Don’t be silly, Bill. There’s nothing for them to find down there. And if they do, we’ll just have Analisa sing them a lovely song whenever they do get here.”
“Goddammit, Juanita. This is serious shit. You have got to get gone quick before they get up here and lock us all up.”
Juanita smiled a coy smile as she thought of how Bill seemed to have very little concern about his own well being. “Sorry to disappoint you, Bill,” she replied nonchalantly. “But I’m not going anywhere. If they come, so be it.”
Bill grabbed the hat off his head and threw it to the ground in anger. He stormed out of the barn, got on his horse and tore out of the stable yard. That was the point at which Juanita lost her cool.
“Once a traitorous coward, always a traitorous coward,” she snarled under her breath. “Keith! Jason! Eric! Get your lazy asses in here!”
The three ranch hands came tumbling over themselves into the barn to see what their boss wanted.
“Yes boss?” they said in unison.
“You three get on out after Bill and make sure he doesn’t leave this valley. I don’t care what you do just bring him back here.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Fifteen minutes later, the three men had Bill Kellerman in their sights. The sun was starting to set and there was no time to lose; if he made it out of the valley there was no telling what Miss Esperanza would do to them.
“Get him, boys! Yaaaah!” Keith cried as he urged his horse forward even faster. The other two followed suit. A few minutes later, they were astride with Bill’s horse and the ranch manager knew he was done for. Eric grabbed his reins and began to slow the horses. As soon as his horse was moving slow enough, Bill jumped from the saddle and ran like crazy bull for the canyon walls. He knew if he got there he could easily lose the inexperienced ranch hands on the twisting, winding paths up the ridge. But within seconds, Jason tackled him to the ground and delivered a punch square to his jaw. The other two came running up as mad as wasps and started kicking Bill in the ribs and stomping on him with their boots.
They were so busy working a number over on the man they didn’t notice the two vampires who’d landed quietly on the ground behind them.
When Bill Kellerman regained consciousness it was already dark and he didn’t remember much about what had happened to him.
“Wake up, Bill,” Veronica said slapping his cheek with her open palm.
“Hey!” he cried. “Easy now. That hurts!”
“Wuss!” Bjorn scoffed.
Bill stood up and wavered a moment. Bjorn caught him before he could fall down on his ass again.
“We’re taking you to Silver Creek. There’s a nice detective there who’ll be interested in hearing what you’ve got to tell him.”
“Oh, hell no!” Bill said swinging his arms to get out of Bjorn’s grip. “I ain’t talking to the law about nothing.”
Bjorn tightened his grip and Bill screamed in pain.
Veronica laughed and pointed over at a tree. “It’s either you come with us or I’ll untie these three and let them get back to what they were doing to you before we came along and saved your sorry ass.”
Bill looked up at the tree and saw Jason, Eric and Keith tied neatly to the trunk, unconscious.
Bjorn took one look at Bill’s face and asked, “So, what’s it gonna be, big boy?”
“Shit! Come on then,” Bill finally replied. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Ma’am,” Danny said, coming into the barn while Juanita was feeding Ivory.
She was in good spirits and responded in a musical tone. “What you need, Danny?”
“Have you seen or talked to Bill? He was supposed to be back an hour or so ago. We started a new colt and he was supposed to help me with him today.”
“I’m sure he’s around somewhere,” Juanita responded.
“That’s not all,” Danny continued after a short pause. “There’s been a lot of strange stuff going on around the place.”
“What sort of strange stuff?”
“Something or someone has been snooping around the place,” Danny responded. “Several actually.”
“Are you getting spooked by ghosts, Danny?” Juanita laughed.
“I’m serious, ma’am,” he replied. “Even Analisa says…”
“What are you doing talking to Analisa?” Juanita snapped. She was very protective of the girl.
“She came out to pet Rex and I helped get some oats for her to feed to him, that’s all.”
Immediately, Juanita’s chipper mood vanished. “Finish here!” she snapped and rushed toward the house.
“Analisa?” she called out when she stepped through the patio doors. The girl usually came running whenever she called, but there was no response. She rushed to the kitchen. “Martha, have you seen Analisa?”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen or heard from her since she came running in from the corral and rushed up to her room. I hadn’t thought anything of it until now.”
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Juanita rushed out of the kitchen and to the steps two at a time as she rushed up stairs. “Analisa? Analisa where are you?” She called out several times, but got no answer. She searched under the bed and in the closets. She went from room to room calling out and looking under the beds and in the closets. Then it struck her that there was a trunk in the closet of the room, which Katie used when she stayed over. Analisa used to hide in it when she’d firs
t come to live at Caldera. She went in the room and pulled open the lid.
“No! No! No! Close it! They’ll find me!” Analisa screamed.
“Who will find you?”
“The vampires.”
“What vampires?”
“The ones that were out at the barn.”
“There are vampires out at the barn?”
“Not now, but I think they’re coming back.”
“How do you know that?”
“They said they were going to get Detective Massey and come back for the cows.”
“Who is Detective Massey?”
“I don’t know, but he’s going to bring a warrant to search the premises and then the vampires will find me.”
“A warrant?” Juanita asked. As the words came out of her mouth, she began to panic. She wasn’t sure about vampires, but she did trust Analisa’s psychic abilities. It didn’t matter who she had heard or seen, if someone was talking about a warrant, then she needed to start getting rid of evidence. “She pressed the speed dial button on her phone and connected with Oscar after two rings.
“Bueno,” Oscar’s voice rang out.
“Get some semi-trucks here just as fast as you can. We’ve got to get the cattle out of here.”
“Nita, a semi-truck only hold about 60 cows. It would take a lot of trucks to get all your cattle out of there. That will take several trips.”
“Send me three trucks then and send them fast.” She disconnected the call and started back to the barn to find Danny and the other two hands. They had to get the one hundred and eighty head of Silver Blue Hermosa cows on those trucks. They had to do it pronto.
***
“We’re almost too late,” Detective Massey announced. “Look.”
I followed the line of his outstretched finger. In the ranch yard below us, two semi-trucks were parked one behind the other and waiting to pull out onto the road to leave, while a third truck was backed up to the dock. Three men and a woman were scurrying around trying to cram the last truck full of cows. The three truck drivers sat on the top rail of the fence and watched.
“We better hurry then,” Earnest responded.
I wanted very badly to transform and fly down the hill to stop them, but I couldn’t risk revealing my true nature to them.
Where are Bjorn and Veronica?
Earnest, Massey and I along with the three deputies accompanying us spurred our horses into action, racing off the hill toward the ranch. We weren’t quite into the ranch yard when we saw the tailgate come down on the last truck and the three drivers scrambling to get their trucks rolling down the road. The trucks were already out the gate when the six of us rode into the yard, surprising the three ranch hands.
“Stay right where you are and don’t move a muscle,” Massey ordered. “And keep your hands where we can see them too.”
“Danny, where’s Miss Esperanza?” Earnest asked.
The three hands shrugged and stared at us with wide eyes.
“We’ll stick here with these three,” Massey ordered.
“What about the trucks?” Earnest asked.
As he spoke, I heard Bjorn’s voice in her head.
We’re here, what do you need?
Go get those trucks turned around, I responded.
“I’ll call the State Patrol, they’ll stop the trucks and then we can go check them out later on. For now, we’ll have a good look around the place and ask some questions,” Massey responded.
“I don’t think you’ll have to call the State Patrol,” I answered. “I have a feeling they’ll be coming right back.”
Massey shrugged and eyed me with suspicion. It wasn’t the first time I’d predicted something impossible only for him to witness it taking place a few minutes later. He opened his mouth to comment, but was interrupted by the thundering of horse’s hooves behind us.
“There goes Miss Esperanza,” he announced in a dry tone. He was about to call out to his deputies when he heard the thundering of three sets of horses’ hooves joining in behind the fugitive.
“I have a feeling she’ll be coming right back too,” I grinned.
“Yeah, well…” He didn’t finish his response.
He eyed the young men in front of him. They were pretty rugged types, but not unusual for cowboys. “Any of you want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“Miss Esperanza rode in earlier this afternoon from checking cattle and then went into the house. When she came back out, she told us to get scrambling to gather the last three shipments of cows that we got in and get them down here to load in the trucks,” one of the hands volunteered. “She seemed like she was in a hurry to get ‘em loaded out, so we hurried up and loaded ‘em out.”
“Thanks, that’s helpful,” Massey groused.
Reading the young man’s thoughts, I could tell that he had told Massey everything that he knew.
“That’s all I know.” He glanced at his companions and they nodded their agreement. “Mister Cumber, what’s this all about anyway? Why are you three here with those three deputies? Did Miss Esperanza do something wrong?”
I let out a snort. All three of the cowboys, Earnest and Massey turned to look at me. Massey letting a corner of his mouth turn up in a half grin.
“I doubt these cowboys are involved beyond following orders,” Earnest whispered aside to Massey. “They probably don’t know much.”
“If you three will sit tight and cooperate, we won’t outfit you with bracelets, okay?”
“We ain’t got nowhere to go.” The other two nodded agreement.
***
“Well I’ll be damned,” Massey grumbled. “You’re 2 for 2, Sam. I was counting on the deputies bringing Miss Esperanza back, but I sure wouldn’t have thought you guessed right on the truck.”
I looked up and saw the semi-trucks pulling back into the ranch yard. Bjorn and Veronica were accompanying them. The wide-eyed drivers had, evidently seen something that had gotten their full attention and caused them to turn around.
Good work, you two.
We aim to please.
You two can cut out if you want. I think we’re done here.
You sure?
Yeah, go on. I think Massey and the deputy can handle it from here.
You don’t have to ask twice. See ya!.
Thanks, guys.
Don’t mention it.
“Well, Miss Esperanza,” Massey said, stepping up to her and speaking in a cold tone. “Would you like to tell me what’s in those trucks or should I let Earnest check them out?”
“Quite obviously they are cattle,” Juanita retorted. “Check all you want, but the more time you spend here and the more snooping around you do the worse it is going to get after I call a certain powerful friend of mine.”
“Oh yeah?” Massey asked. “Who would that be?”
“Senator Antonio de Armas,” she announced, allowing a broad smile to spread over her full lips as she played her trump card.
“Depending on what we find on those trucks,” Massey responded. “You can use your one phone call to call him or your attorney, whichever one suits you.”
I watched the fire flare up in Juanita’s eyes as she took in Massey’s response. Cuffed and flanked on each side by a deputy, there wasn’t a lot the woman could do. She stood in simmering silence as we all watched Earnest climb up onto each of the trucks and make an examination of the cattle inside. After he looked into the last one, he hopped down and strolled back toward the waiting group.
“It’s them,” he sighed, glaring directly into the eyes of Juanita and then he addressed her. “I knew both your daddy and your granddaddy. Hell, I knew you when you were a little girl, but I damned sure don’t know you now. You’ve disgraced the names of two damned good men.”
“What about you?” Juanita spat. “You and your Silver Blue Hermosa Co-op. You forced my daddy out of Quartz Creek and Duck Basin. You’re a disgrace for stealing the federal grant rights to the grazing land that belonged to my family for
four generations!”
“Your daddy turned those permits over to us of his own accord. He didn’t have the herds to keep it viable anymore.”
“We’ll settle this in court,” Massey said. He turned to the deputies. “One of you read Miss Esperanza her rights and I’ll call out a car for transporting our prisoner.”
“Can I see my niece before I go?” Juanita asked, suddenly appearing humbled and beaten.
“I don’t think…” Massey started to respond.
“It’ll be okay, Detective,” Earnest interrupted. “She’s a little girl and deserves a minute with her aunt.”
“I suppose that’s okay,” Massey relented. “We have to wait for the car anyway.”
As the group trailed along with their prisoner to the house, I watched Juanita closely and tried to read her thoughts, but all I got were curse words, anger and second thoughts about things that had gotten her caught. It was pretty much what I’d expected from the woman; regret over getting caught, but no remorse for committing the crime.
We were gathered in the kitchen, dining room and spilling out onto the patio as Martha brought the wide eyed Analisa down from her hiding place. The instant she arrived in the room, the little girl was watching me closely. I could tell that she was terrified of me, but there was something else there too. At first, I could sense it but then I saw it… it was the same strange aura that I’d seen traces of out on the plain. The little girl had supernatural powers.
“Come here, baby,” Juanita said, squatting to greet the little girl.
“What’s wrong, Tia? Why are all these people here? Why are you wearing those funny bracelets? Why is there a vam…”
“Shush, baby,” Juanita interrupted her. “Tia Juanita has to go away for a while, but I’ll come back. You stay with Martha and be good, okay?”
“Okay.”
“While I’m gone, you can sing our special song, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Try it out. You never know, it might keep the vampires away.”
Just as she said it, I read her mind and started to react, but when the first, high-pitched note came from the little girl’s throat, I was frozen stiff. I stood there, looking on helplessly as all of the others froze in place. I watched Juanita get the key to her hand cuffs from the deputy and unlock the cuffs, throw them down with a smug look on her face, and then leave the room.