“Yes, that would be the Cameron way,” Honor said. “Cold but efficient—no fuss, no bother. Why struggle with the messy details when the world is full of lawyers who will do it for you?”
“I moved back into my cabin,” Duane said. “When I’m in the big house I feel like I’m just rattling around.”
“You do seem sort of like you and that cabin are a fit,” she said.
“Besides that I’ve made a friend,” he said. “A rhino friend. He’s about my age, I guess—they call him Double Aught.”
Honor was silent for a moment.
“Good lord,” she said. “How does a rhino manifest his friendship?”
“One night he walked me home,” Duane said.
“I thought those rhinos were there to breed other rhinos,” Honor said.
“Maybe he’s like me—a little old for the girls,” he said.
“That’s nonsense,” Honor said. “You aren’t too old for the girls. What about K.K. Slater?”
“I met her once—what about her?”
“Has she made any moves?”
“I think she likes Boyd Cotton,” Duane said. “They both like horses, for one thing.”
Then he told her about the rednecks shooting Aught Six, and all the furor that caused.
“It might be that the rhinos are no safer in Texas than they are in Africa,” Honor said.
“You hit the nail right on the head,” Duane said. “You think I’ll ever see Annie again?”
“I certainly hope not,” Honor said.
25
BOYD AND BOBBY LEE had spent some troubled nights on the platform by the North Gate, during which they had done a pretty thorough survey of the whiskeys available at the local liquor store. Besides the Johnnie Walker they sampled Dewar’s, Cutty Sark, Wild Turkey and many other popular beverages. Only vodka was tacitly scratched off the list. Bobby Lee couldn’t handle it, for some reason.
The ease with which young Aught Six had been killed weighed on their consciences. The fact was that most of the vast acreage they were responsible for was bordered by narrow, sparsely traveled country roads, and most of the locals who did travel them had rifles in their pickups, and most of the drivers were tempted by large targets. Lonnie and Damon had already established that fact.
“What the hell are we going to do, Boyd?” Bobby Lee asked.
“When I took this job I thought there soon would be ten towers spread about the property,” Boyd said. “So far I only count one, and that’s ours. And one ain’t enough.”
“I think we ought to call the boss lady and stress that it’s urgent that we get more help.”
“Well, I’d be reluctant to do that,” Boyd said.
“Why not? She likes you,” Bobby Lee asked. “She spent half a day with you and never said ten words to me.”
“I could call her but right now I prefer to get drunk,” Boyd said.
“K.K. might be at the beauty parlor,” he added. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt her.”
“Can you shoot when you’re drunk?” Bobby Lee inquired.
“I can shoot but I can’t claim I hit much shooting while under the influence,” Boyd said. “Hell, I can’t even rope when I’m drunk now, and I used to be able to rope in pretty much any condition. Not no more.”
“I think that if any more rhinos get shot on our watch we’ll get fired, and that’s a dark thought for you.”
“It is a dark thought,” Boyd agreed. “Then you’d have to go back to spending your days getting oily, and I’d be hunting cowboying in a place where there ain’t none,” Boyd said.
After which, they drank.
26
THE NEXT MORNING, just after sunrise, K.K.’s white Cessna landed at the little paved airstrip that had been put in near the compound and the tower.
Since it was after sunrise Boyd and Bobby Lee had finished their shift on the tower and were off in search of breakfast, leaving Dub and Bub Hartman with the terrifying prospect of facing the boss lady, K.K. Slater, alone.
“I feel like diving off this tower right now, head first,” Dub said.
“You’ve always been a worrier,” his brother said. “The worst she can do is fire us and I’m not crazy about this job anyhow.”
“Old Double Aught could knock this tower over, anytime he took a notion to,” Dub remarked.
“What if K.K.’s in a bad mood?” Bub asked. He had only seen K.K. Slater once or twice, and, in any case, he had never been a very keen judge of female moods. His own girlfriend, Laurie Jenette Beaumont, mainly liked to sit on the couch, eat popcorn and watch Montel Williams. Laurie Jenette’s moods seldom varied much, not even when they were doing the deed. Often, in the very midst of the deed, she would quietly drift off to sleep. At such times she was also apt to snore loudly.
Bub himself never snored while doing the deed.
As they watched, K.K. got out of the plane and came over to the tower, whose ladder she proceeded to climb.
“I asked for a car to meet me,” she said, once on top. “I don’t see a car. All I see is a pickup.”
“That’s ours,” Dub said.
“Where’s the Range Rover?” she asked.
“Bobby Lee just took it in for an oil change,” Bub said.
There was a phone with a blinking message machine two steps behind Dub. K.K. punched the message button and heard herself addressing the tower to inform them that she was arriving at seven A.M. and would need a car. The second message said the same thing, only more emphatically.
“Could I have your pickup keys?” she asked. “I have a meeting to make.”
K.K. glanced to the northwest and saw a sight that startled her. A man too far away to be recognized was walking along a dirt road, while abreast of him, one hundred yards perhaps, a massive black rhino was wandering through the mesquite, more or less keeping pace with the walker. The rhino was Double Aught.
She watched as the pair came closer.
“Son of a bitch,” she said quietly to herself.
“Is this common?” she asked, turning to Bub and Dub. “Do Mr. Moore—I think that’s him—and Double Aught always stroll along together like they seem to be doing now?”
Dub and Bub felt paralyzed. They knew nothing of the habits of Duane Moore, and even less about Double Aught.
“Never mind, I’ll ask him myself,” K.K. said.
Then she climbed down the ladder.
27
DUANE WAS NOT particularly surprised to find K.K. Slater waiting by the gate to the Rhino Ranch. He had heard the Cessna while it was still in the air.
Double Aught drifted over to the hay rack, where, fortunately, there was an abundance of hay.
“I didn’t think people ever walked in this part of the country,” K.K. said. She offered her hand and Duane shook it.
“Walking’s frowned upon, I admit,” Duane said. “But I have a little cabin a couple of miles from here and sometimes I feel like walking to it.”
“You seem to have made a pet of Double Aught,” she said. “In truth he’s never been a very wild rhino. He was raised on one of those safari resorts in Kenya.”
“I like him and he seems to like me but to tell you the truth I’m a little worried about him,” Duane said. “What happened to Aught Six the other night could easily happen to him. The closer the old boy is to a road the more danger he’s in.”
“You’re right, obviously—that’s why I’m here,” she said. Sixteen more rhinos are arriving today. You live here. How would you suggest I protect them?”
Duane had been pondering that question himself. He didn’t want to wake up some morning and find Double Aught in a ditch with his horn sawed off.
“I don’t know how to protect them,” he said. “People around here seem to think they have a God-given right to kill big animals.”
“Not just around here,” K.K. said. “People in many places feel that way.”
“You’ve got quite a bit of land here,” Duane said. “If you could find some way to
keep the rhinos out of sight of the roads they’d have a better chance. Not too many people would actually crawl through a fence to go after rhino.”
“Not at first,” K.K. said. “But eventually some will do just that—crawl through a fence to shoot at a rhino.”
Duane knew she was right—human destructiveness seemed to only get worse, in relation to the value of the quarry.
He liked K.K.’s frankness—she had given the matter more thought than he had.
“Why don’t you call me Duane,” he said.
“Thanks, I will, Duane,” K.K. Slater said.
28
DUANE RODE INTO Thalia with K.K. He saw that her face was lined, in the way real ranch women’s faces came to be after many years in the sun and wind.
“I wish you’d indulge me just once and come to the meeting I called,” she said, parking the Hartman brothers’ pickup at the courthouse.
“All right,” Duane said. “What kind of folks will I get to meet?”
“Well, there’ll be the nonprofit world. I doubt you’ve spent much time in that world.”
He waited.
“That means we’ll hear from the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, a sprinkle of Game and Fish types, the state Chamber of Commerce and for kicks a Texas Ranger I invited. He’s my beau, sort of.”
“I think the Texas Ranger name still carries some weight,” he said. “If they was to assign us a Ranger or two I think the rhinos might stand a little better chance.”
“I need to eat before I tackle this crowd,” K.K. said.
“There’s always the Dairy Queen,” he reminded her. “You already know what their chicken-frys are like.”
“Let’s hit it,” K.K. said. “You’re paying. I forgot to grab my billfold when I took off this morning.”
When they reached the Dairy Queen thirty-two combines were lined up down the road in front of it; which meant that the wheat harvest was just about to get underway. The same machines would harvest their way north and be in Manitoba at summer’s end.
“This place is too crowded—maybe we should run down to the next town,” she said.
“Not to worry,” Duane said. He nodded at Maybelle the cook—five minutes later they had their order: eggs up, sausage, grits and biscuits.
The combiners looked a little surprised when they noticed Duane and K.K.’s food marching by, but they were excited to be starting the harvest and didn’t say anything.
“This doesn’t seem very democratic, dare I say,” K.K. said.
“I used to be important here,” Duane said. “Now my main privilege is getting my eats quick.”
“Does your privilege follow you into the bedroom?” she asked.
“Nope,” Duane said.
“I didn’t think so,” K.K. said.
29
AS THEY WERE eating a very clean state patrol car pulled in and parked near the window where they were eating.
“Who’s that?” Duane asked.
K.K. smiled—she looked girlish, for a moment.
“My beau,” she said. “Hondo Honda.”
Duane was not sure whether she spoke seriously or in jest.
Hondo Honda got out of the car, put an immaculate Stetson on his head and took a Winchester rifle in a fringed scabbard out of the back seat.
“Does he always bring a rifle to breakfast?” Duane asked.
“Everywhere—he brings it everywhere,” K.K. said.
Duane noticed that, besides the rifle, Hondo Honda also had a sizable revolver with pearl grips.
“Are you sure we’re not in a movie?” he asked.
“Just don’t embarrass him, Duane,” she said. “He’ll embarrass himself soon enough.”
When Hondo Honda stepped inside, the thirty or so combiners looked at him in surprise.
“It’s okay, John Wayne,” one said, putting his hands up high. “Whatever we done we plead guilty to. I’d hate to be shot full of holes in a fuckin’ Dairy Queen.”
“Uh-oh,” K.K. said. “Hondo won’t tolerate rude behavior.”
Hondo Honda could not hide a look of perplexity. He had showed up in Thalia at K.K.’s request and now this big stout boy in a University of Nebraska T-shirt seemed almost to be making fun of him.
While he was considering his options Boyd Cotton walked in. He had to step around Hondo to gain a clean path to Duane’s table.
“’Lo, cowboy,” Hondo said.
Hondo had taken off his hat, but couldn’t find a place to put it.
The room relaxed.
“What’s wrong with that Texas Ranger?” Boyd asked, mildly. He put his own worn Stetson on his knee.
“Nothing that isn’t wrong with the majority of his kind,” K.K. said.
Eventually, finding no hat rack, Hondo Honda sat down with them. He followed Boyd Cotton’s example and put his fine hat on his knee.
30
THREE YEARLING RHINOS got out last night,” Boyd informed his boss. “They got out on the far west side. I brought them back but I doubt they’ll stay around unless we get that tubular fencing up pretty soon.
“They’re not that different from cows, they just weigh more,” he added.
“Sixteen big ones are coming today,” K.K. reminded him.
“All the more reason to get the good fencing started,” Boyd said. His breakfast arrived unbidden, his eggs fried hard, as was the cowboy custom. They were accompanied by a double order of biscuits and gravy.
“Was there foul play in the yearlings’ escape?” Hondo inquired. “I hear there’s been foul play up here already—probably Mexicans behind it.”
“No, it was two white men from Durango, Colorado,” Boyd told him. For some reason the big Ranger rubbed him the wrong way.
“You’re gonna need adequate fencing and you’re going to need it quick,” Duane told K.K., wondering why she had bothered to call in Hondo. Then he remembered she had said he was her beau.
“We’ll get to the fencing,” K.K. said. “There’s been a slight hitch in our plans but I hope we can clear it up today.”
But her tone had changed—from being the model of the decisive billionairess she was muted, tentative. Hondo Honda stared at her with frank adoration.
Duane paid the check and Boyd Cotton took care of the tip…a crumpled dollar bill.
Duane felt so strongly that something was amiss that he decided just to ask.
“K.K. is something wrong?” he asked.
“How’d you guess?” she said. “In fact something is wrong.
“Bad wrong,” she added.
“I’m broke, that’s what’s wrong,” she went on. “I can’t even afford to buy three guys breakfast at a goddamned Dairy Queen.”
Duane was stunned. She was a billionairess—the only one he had ever met. Pedigree didn’t mean that much in Texas, unless it involved race horses, but K.K. was from one of the oldest families in the state.
How could she be broke?
Then he did recall that it had been said of the oilman Bunker Hunt that he was so rich he couldn’t go broke if he tried.
Then he promptly went broke.
“How can you be broke?” he asked.
“My brothers, that’s how,” she told him, before bursting into tears.
31
K.K. CRIED HARD, but she didn’t cry long.
“Would you happen to have a handkerchief in your pocket?” she asked Duane, which he did and which he happily lent her.
When her eyes cleared she looked at the cars parked at the courthouse. She shook her head, evidently annoyed by the sight of cars, most of which were not the kind of cars one found in Thalia.
“Second-tier!” she muttered, a comment that meant nothing to Duane.
“My brothers and I are battling over the Slater Trust,” she said. “It’s one of the largest in the world, and the income from it allows me to fund charities such as the Rhino Ranch.
“Word has leaked that my asshole brothers are trying to break the Slater Trust,” she said.
“This could mean Armageddon in the nonprofit world. I called this meeting to try a little damage control.”
“Who’ll be here?” he asked, noticing that none of the cars currently parked on the square seemed to be American-made. None of them looked like they’d be cheap, either.
“Well, Donna, from the Texas Chamber of Commerce,” K.K. said. “She’s probably a slightly more vulgar version of your wife. There’ll be a perfectly nice wimp from the Nature Conservancy, and a distant cousin of Prince Philip who’s with the World Wildlife Fund. I had hoped Boone Pickens would show up—Boone likes fights, but I think he’s out of the country.”
Duane felt a little swamped. Boone Pickens, and a cousin of Prince Philip, in Thalia, Texas? Had there ever been such a show?
“My father knew I was smarter than all my brothers put together, so he put me over the trust,” K.K. said.
Just then a lawyerish figure stepped out of the courthouse, looked around until he spotted K.K. and then waved frantically at her.
“I guess the judge just showed up,” Duane ventured.
“No judge, this is just about fund-raising,” she said. “Several prominent institutions have put money into the rhino project, and, being institutions, they hedge every bet they can hedge, If it gets on the wire that my brothers are trying to break the Slater Trust, then every ecology-related charity would feel immediate frostbite.”
“Why bring them here, if it’s not a trial?” Duane asked.
“Because I can,” K.K. said. “I want to get them on unfamiliar ground. Making them uncomfortable never hurts.”
Duane had the feeling that he was on unfamiliar ground himself, despite the fact that he was in his hometown.
“Plus we’re getting sixteen more rhinos this afternoon,” she said. “That would provide lots of photo ops, which would give them nice snaps to take back to their boards.”
Just then Boyd Cotton drove up and parked beside them. Boyd had changed into a clean blue work shirt, and was wearing his rodeo boots, a fact Duane noticed when they all got out of their vehicles.
Rhino Ranch Page 5