Jack The Roper (Axel Hatchett Mystery Book 6)

by Steven Nelson

  There was a clattering of knives and forks and tin cups and hasty, hearty, introductions. Before we got down to calling each other partner, a pair of swinging doors at one end of the room opened and a pretty cowgirl and a hulking cowman appeared with big trays of more food. The girl was sunny-haired and freckled, a smile as big as all outdoors on her face. The hulking guy, white as a fish belly, was Billy.

  “Welcome folks,” said the shapely cow miss. “Eat up all you can. We’ve got a busy day planned for you. I’m Sissy Dell, and this fellow is Panhandle. We’ll be taking care of the cooking for you. In a minute here, Mr. Breedlaw, that’s my uncle, is going to come talk to you about the Carefree Buckaroo.”

  “Howdy folks!” bellowed Billy — Panhandle. He saw me and grew even more pale. He ducked his head and quickly made his way back to the kitchen.

  Sissy Dell topped off our coffee cups, and chattered away like a ground squirrel.

  “Do we get to pick out our own horses?” Tracy asked her.

  “Well, ma’am, that’s the wrangler’s job. You’ll have to talk to him. His name’s Hawk Luster, and he’s handsome enough to turn the head of any heifer.” She gently shook a finger at us. “Mind you watch your ladies, gents.”

  With a laugh as tinkly as a bicycle bell, she left us to our chow and went back through the swinging doors. Her hips were swinging too.

  I had no time to think about Panhandle. I heard the sound of tires on gravel and looked out the latticed window. A tan Ford, with a sheriff’s star in white on the door, rolled into the parking lot. I figured they were here to collect Panhandle, but I figured wrong. A big guy with a cowboy hat, a tan uniform, and a tin star, got out of the driver’s side of the Ford. A smaller guy, with a bigger hat, maybe a deputy, got out of the passenger’s side. And then a lanky guy with silver hair, a turquoise shirt, and a bolo tie, came out of nowhere and greeted the lawmen. The three of them talked for a minute, silver hair pointed his finger, and they all went off in that direction.

  “What’s all that about,” said a round, sandy-haired, guy who’d introduced himself as Curt Halsey, hardware, Flummers, Iowa. His wife, pudgy and curly haired, was named Mabel. “Think it’s cattle rustlers?”

  “Maybe it’s a show put on for us dudes,” guessed a woman — not bad looking in a lanky, ponytailed, kind of way — whose name was Betsy. She was married to Walter, a long drink of ice water with no flesh on him to speak of.

  “No, something’s up,” said Dr. Rumdab, a guy too old to be riding horses or to be married to the pixy-faced Lilly he’d introduced as his wife.

  “Maybe some steer was caught jaywalking,” I said. The comment got more of a laugh than it deserved.

  Sissy Dell and Panhandle rushed back into the room. The girl’s smile was still in place but her eyes looked frantic. Panhandle was carrying a guitar. From his expression and actions, I figured he wasn’t on the sheriff’s list — yet.

  “There’s way more food, folks,” said Sissy Dell. “Eat up! Mr. Breedlaw’s going to be a little late. I’m sorry. While we’re waiting for him, me and Panhandle are going to sing you a few cowboy songs.”

  Panhandle started strumming the guitar, and damned if he couldn’t actually play. Sissy Dell sang “What’s Become of the Punchers” in a sweet voice, but she had to work hard on the low notes. They finished the song and started in on the “Tennessee Stud”, but Dr. Rumdab interrupted them.

  “Why is the sheriff here?” he demanded, in a loud voice.

  “Sheriff Fish is here to talk to Mr. Breedlaw,” said Sissy Dell. “There’s been a little accident.”

  “What kind of accident,” asked Rumdab.

  “None of your damned business,” said Panhandle. “Eat your pancakes.”

  “See here!” said Rumdab.

  Sissy Dell elbowed Panhandle. “Panhandle’s just upset because of the misfortune. Mr. Breedlaw will explain things when he gets done talking to the sheriff.”

  “Is everything OK, Miss?” asked Curt, the Iowa hardware man. He looked scared.

  “Everything’s just fine, folks,” said Sissy Dell, brightly, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “A guy’s dead, that’s all,” growled Panhandle.

  “Mercy!” said curly-haired Mabel, adding a little squeak. “How’d he die? Did a horse throw him?”

  “Just go on with your breakfast, folks,” said Sissy Dell. “What do you think of our doughnuts?”

  “The guy died with a rope around his neck,” said Panhandle. Sissy Dell elbowed him again, this time hard enough to make him grunt.

  The front door opened and a tall cowboy walked in, holding his big hat in his hand. He was something to look at. Floppy raven hair, lonesome steely eyes, a cleft chin and a hawk nose, and lots of suntan. He was dressed all in black, with silver buttons on his shirt, and a white kerchief around his bull neck, held in place by a little silver steer’s head. He wore a black, tooled, gun belt, with a pearl handled, nickel-plated, Colt revolver peeking out of the holster. His boots were shiny black with silver toes. Pure Hollywood.

  “Folks, my name’s Hawk Luster,” he said, in a low voice just made for soothing jumpy night herds. The ladies in the room all sighed, even Tracy. “We got ourselves a situation. Ranch life can be kind of harsh. One of our wranglers met his maker last night. Mr. Breedlaw run across him a little over an hour ago. Poor Brice has gone to his reward. I reckon he was trying to rope old Whitey, a wild stallion that comes in the night and runs off our mares. I can’t tell you more than that. It’s the sheriff’s business now. I reckon as soon as you’ve finished your mighty fine breakfast, you folks should be going back to your cabins. Them’s the sheriff’s orders. Nobody’s allowed to leave the ranch.”

  “This is outrageous!” said Rumdab. “Before I made our reservations I was assured that the West was no longer wild.”

  “We still got some rough edges,” said Hawk.

  “Rough edges, indeed. I’ll be calling my lawyer.”

  “The death was an accident, wasn’t it?” asked Curt, pulling his wife closer to him.

  “I reckon the sheriff will decide that,” said Hawk.

  We all started getting to our feet, and there was a lot of chatter. Tracy gave me a look that said, “Stay out of this.”

  “Let’s go back to our cabins, everyone,” I said, raising my voice. “Everything’s going to be just fine. No doubt they’re just looking into the death to make sure it was an accident. Maybe the sheriff will want to talk to us, but it won’t amount to much. Let’s just take it easy. We’ll be riding horses and singing songs before you know it.”

  For some reason, the idiots seemed to believe me. They quieted down and started filing out the door. Hawk Luster gave me a nod of thanks.

  “Just wait in your cabins until we come get you,” Hawk told us.

  We muttered and crept our way to our broken-down cabins. When Tracy and me were inside, with the door safely closed, she turned on me.

  “You stay out of this, Mr. Big Shot detective. If somebody’s been murdered it’s none of your business.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s just my bad luck that some poor cowpoke got knocked off on our honeymoon. I’m keeping my nose out of it, cowgirl. Don’t think otherwise.”

  5

  Tracy grabbed me and hugged and kissed me. She kept it up until there was a knock at the door. It was the sheriff’s deputy. He was even shorter than I’d realized, though the hat helped, and he wasn’t very old. He was all business, though.

  “Sheriff wants to see you and your wife in the dining hall. Right away.”

  I opened my mouth to say something smart, because that’s just how I am, but he’d already turned away and headed back to his car. Probably had an important radio call to make. Tracy and I headed for the grub shack. We were the last ones to get there. While we were going in the door, the Coroner’s wagon, a black Chevy panel truck, pulled up the drive and stopped.

  Inside the grub shack were the sheriff, the guy with the silver hair I
’d figured was the ranch foreman, and some buckaroos I hadn’t yet met. Our fellow guests were all assembled, sitting at one of the long tables. Dr. Rumdab looked like he’d just had a very satisfying talk with his lawyer. There was no phone in our cabin, and I didn’t figure the other cabins had phones, either. I guessed Rumdab must have insisted on borrowing one of the ranch phones. Tracy and me took seats at the table and nodded to our fellow dudes. Rumdab ignored us and glared at the sheriff, who was standing over by the buffet table.

  “Folks, I’m Sheriff Fish” He had a croaky, whiskey voice, “we just wanted to get you all together to let you know what’s going on.”

  He had leathery, tanned skin, and looked about ten years beyond retirement age. These country sheriffs hate giving up their jobs. His eyes were a watery gray, bleached by the sun, and when he took his hat off to scratch his head the ceiling lights bounced off his bald dome.

  “I hear,” continued Fish, “most of you pulled in this morning, except for a couple of you who arrived last night. Just so you know, not a one of you is under suspicion. We’ve had a murder — even Clayton County ain’t free of them — but we got our ideas about who done it.”

  Cops always say that. I bet he didn’t have a clue.

  “As I said, none of you are suspects,” droned on the sheriff, “but we’d appreciate it mightily if you just stayed right here on the ranch for a spell. That shouldn’t be no trouble. You’re all planning to stay here for a few days anyhow. If any of you cares to visit our fine town of Quail Eye, you’re welcome to. But don’t leave the state, and don’t go anywhere without telling us where you’re going. I want you all to go ahead and have a wonderful time at the Carefree Buckaroo. You got any questions, now’s the time to ask. Let ‘er rip!”

  “My lawyer assures me you can’t detain us,” said Rumdab, digging his spurs in.

  The sheriff nodded his head. “If you want to listen to your lawyer instead of me, that’s your lookout. I don’t figure he runs Clayton County, though.”

  “Who got killed, and how?” I asked. Tracy kicked me under the table.

  “An employee of the Carefree Buckaroo. A horse wrangler by the name of Brice Holcombe. Fine fellow, known him for years. I won’t give you no particulars, but he was likely strangled with a rope. There were some horse tracks, but they ain’t uncommon on a ranch.”

  “Did this guy have any enemies?” I asked. Tracy elbowed me in the ribs.

  “Reckon he had at least one, but Brice was a friendly fellow.”

  Sissy Dell, sitting on a chair next to the pot-bellied stove in the center of the room, burst into tears. A bandy-legged cowboy with skin like an old boxing glove let out a wail and dragged a bandana out of his jean’s pocket to honk his nose into. He shook his head, swept off his hat, and flapped it against his dusty chaps. All the other men in the room who were wearing hats took them off. My fedora was back in our cabin.

  “I got nothing more to say,” said the sheriff. I noticed he wore a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight on his hip like any regular cop. “You folks are free to start having some fun.”

  He walked to the door, turned and nodded his head at us, then left.

  Breedlaw, the ranch foreman, stepped forward from a corner and addressed us all. He was maybe sixty, with a silver mustache to match his hair. His eyes were squinty and his yellow teeth would have looked at home in the mouth of a mule. He had a drinker’s lumpy nose.

  “I want to welcome you all to the Carefree Buckaroo. In a minute here, our wrangler — Hawk Luster — will be taking you all to the corral. We’ve got horses saddled for you, and I hope you’re ready to ride. Some of you might not be expert riders. That’s perfectly fine. We’ll get you in the saddle and make sure you don’t fall off your horse. You’ll get back to the chuck house in time for a right fine lunch. Since we’re getting such a late start, the lunch will be light. We don’t want to spoil your appetite for the barbeque we’re planning for your supper, courtesy of Sissy Dell and Panhandle. Let me introduce you to the other members of our ranch.” He waved a big hand at the bandy-legged nose honker. “This is Sheepy Burdell. Don’t let his name fool you. He’s a cattleman and horseman down to the bone. Sheepy takes care of our mustangs, including shoeing and doctoring. This fellow here,” he gestured at the beauty in black, “is Hawk Luster, our wrangler.” Luster bowed to us and smiled bright enough to make the dames want to fan themselves.

  “I thought the wrangler got killed,” said the willowy guy named Walter.

  Breedlaw turned his hat around in his hands. “The ranch needs two wranglers. We got quite a string of horses.”

  My guess was that Hawk was the ornamental wrangler, while the deceased Brice had done the real work.

  “This man standing with his head down — he’s a shy one,” continued Breedlaw, “is our guide, Drew Kettles.” He poked a finger at a young man with reddish hair and a round, pockmarked, face. Kettles looked at all of us and turned red. “Drew knows all the trails around here, and he won’t let you get lost. Standing by the kitchen door there is my own wife, Wheezy.” A middle-aged woman with a face like Sissy Dell’s, only older and without the smile, said howdy to us. “Then there’s Audra Tubbs, another guide, who’s now circulating the maps to you.”

  A girl of twenty or so was walking along our table passing out rustic-looking maps of the ranch. She was short and alarmingly curvy, with a vacant smile on her upturned-nosed face.

  “That’s everyone you need to know on the ranch,” said Breedlaw. “We got some other hands — this is a working cattle and horse ranch — but you likely won’t be seeing them. Now, folks, I’m going to turn you over to Hawk. He’ll have you riding like real hell-for-leather cowboys and cowgirls in no time. Lunch will be waiting for you when you get back. Bring your appetites.”

  Hawk rounded us up and moved us out. He herded us over to a big corral next to the barn. I ducked out and went back to our cabin to fetch my fedora and make sure that Eben and Mayhew had food and water. I also made sure I had my snub-nose thirty-eight in my jeans pocket before I raced back to the corral. Hawk was introducing Tracy to a pretty paint named Candy. He took one look at my fedora and frowned. I guess I wasn’t dressing the part.

  “Candy won’t bite. ma’am,” Hawk said to Tracy. “She’s mighty friendly.”

  “I grew up on a ranch,” Tracy told him. “I know which end of a horse eats and which one doesn’t.”

  I noticed she was wearing her glasses for a change. I imagine she wanted to see all there was to look at on the dude ranch. Or maybe she just wanted to get a good gander at Hawk. She climbed into the saddle like an old hand and looked around at the other dudes with a smirk on her face. She was one of those girls who look good in glasses. The “ranch” she’d grown up on had maybe a dozen cattle and two horses, but I guess she’d at least learned how to ride.

  “I’ve got just the horse for your husband here,” Hawk told her. He turned to me and flashed a crooked smile. “Old Lucky is as gentle as a dove. I’ll get him for you.”

  I was suspicious. I knew the kind of tricks cowboys played on dudes. I half expected Lucky to be a fish-tailing rodeo bronc. Hawk led a big dappled gray over to me. It’s eyes looked sleepy. I wasn’t fooled.

  “You always mount on the left side,” the lovely Hawk told me. Hell, even I knew that. I’d seen Westerns, and the farm in Kansas where I’d grown up had an outsized horse named Pedro that I’d ridden plenty of times.

  “That so?” I asked. “Even in England? I know they drive on the wrong side of the street there.”

  “We ain’t in England,” said Hawk. “Put your foot in the stirrup and climb on up. I’ll hold Lucky’s bridle for you.”

  I got onto Lucky’s back without any trouble. He stood still, twitching one ear. He smelled like a horse.

  “Now,” said Hawk, “what Lucky likes, just to get him started, is for you to nudge him with your heels.”

  Here it comes, I thought. Axe is going over Lucky’s ears. But I was too stubborn to make my sus
picions known to Hawk. I touched my heels to the bronc’s flanks. Lucky whirled around and jumped about twenty feet in the air. I stayed in the saddle. He came down on stiff legs and danced around like he was at a sock hop. He bucked and twisted and had all kinds of fun. I ended up on the ground. Hawk helped me to my feet and settled down Lucky.

  “I don’t rightly understand it,” Hawk apologized, with a poker face. “A fly must have been bothering him. You want to try again?”

  “Sure, let me at him.”

  Hawk held the horse and I crawled back into the saddle. I barely grazed Lucky’s flanks with my heels. He went off like a roman candle and I was reintroduced to the dirt. I banged my head. That made me mad. I’d already been hit in the head with a flashlight, and now a horse was beating me up. Hawk offered me a hand and I knocked it away. I headed for Lucky.

  “Whoa! Whoa! That’s enough,” said Hawk. He started laughing. He turned to the other dudes. “Here at the Carefree Buckaroo we like to have our little jokes. Ain’t nobody can ride Lucky, not even me. You can saddle him, and sit on him, but he won’t be rode.” He turned to me. “You did good. Most dudes fall off sooner.”

  I looked at my fellow dudes. Half of them were laughing and the other half looked horrified.

  “I’m fine,” I told them, slapping the dust off my clothes.

  “No hard feelings?” asked Hawk, laying his pretty hand on my shoulder.

  “No, just bruises. Quite the joke.”

  “I got some hard feelings,” said Tracy, coming forward and getting in Hawk’s face. “That was mean! My husband could have been hurt! This is our honeymoon.”

  “Ma’am, I’m awful sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

  While they were talking I walked over to Lucky. I climbed back into the saddle. Tracy rushed over and grabbed my stirrup.

  “Get down! Don’t be an idiot!” She turned to the other dudes. “He’s hurt. He’s a detective. Night before last a tough guy sapped him in the head, three times. If he wasn’t as tough as he is, he would have been killed. On top of that, some ape waylaid Axe in his office and threw some slugs at his head.”