There were fewer and fewer people in Thalia now that he even knew.
“We fucked a good bit, up in that croppie shack up at Lake Kemp,” Bobby Lee said. “That’s human nature, ain’t it?”
“That’s human nature,” Duane agreed.
48
ANNIE QUIT US,” Dickie mentioned—his wife was out of town and he and Duane were grilling steaks. Duane was drinking a little Bourbon but Dickie restricted himself to Evian water. His years of addiction were not forgotten.
“If I caused it, I’m sorry,” Duane said.
“Forget it, I’ve already found someone just as good or better,” Dickie said. “Her name is Dal—she’s from Thailand, most recently.”
“Annie was smart but Dal is super-smart,” Dickie said. “We won’t lose a step.”
“Good—I’ll try not to marry Dal.”
“If I wasn’t married I’d try to marry her,” Dickie said. “She’s in the Emirates just now but she’ll be along soon.”
That night, restless, Duane climbed up on the observation deck—still the only observation deck—and had a drink with Boyd and Bobby.
“I’m having a harder and harder time feeling smart, in this modern world,” he said. “How about you Boyd—do you still feel smart?”
“Mostly,” Boyd said.
“Maybe you aren’t smart anymore, Duane,” Bobby suggested. “You used to kinda run this whole part of the country, and now you don’t.”
“That was forty years back,” Duane said. “And what I ran turned out not to amount to much.”
“I’d rather be useful than smart,” Boyd said. “And right now I don’t feel very damn useful. I did catch a glimpse of that porn star who works for Dickie, though.”
“You’re luckier than me, Boyd,” Bobby Lee said. “My glimpse cost me over a hundred dollars in traffic fines.”
When Duane left he was halfway down the ladder when he realized he was much too drunk to be climbing down high ladders in the night. By being very careful he made it the rest of the way down. Once down he headed for town.
“Hey,” Bobby Lee yelled, when he saw Duane heading back to Thalia. “You’re going the wrong way. Your cabin’s in the other direction.”
“I’m not going to my cabin—I need to go to the Kwik-Sack and buy an atlas,” Duane yelled.
He had developed a sudden desire to know where Thailand was—the place the mysterious Dal was coming from. He was almost to the city limits before he realized that the only atlas the Kwik-Sack might have would just show the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
It had been a while since Duane had been drunk enough to make that kind of mistake.
He went to his big house and lay in the hot tub a long time before he felt sober enough even to go to bed.
49
TO HIS ANNOYANCE Duane entered a phase in which his eyes would fill up and spill over. The first time it happened—he was buying peanut butter at the Kwik-Sack—he put it down to ragweed allergy. But after it had happened two or three times, he realized that he was crying. Not sobbing deeply, or crying for long; nothing like that. But, undeniably, he was subject to little spurts of crying.
When, embarrassed, he told Ethel at the Kwik-Sack that he must be allergic to ragweed, Ethel corrected him.
“It’s the oak pollen that’s getting you, honey,” she said. “The ragweed’s over for the year.”
Ethel chain-smoked, in bold defiance of a new city ordinance prohibiting smoking inside buildings.
Duane was careful to hide his little spoutings of tears from everyone, and, since he kept largely to himself, he succeeded. The few who saw him looking red-eyed put it down to ragweed, or oak pollen or Johnson grass.
Often, when he walked home out to his cabin, Double Aught would pick him up a little way north of the tower and accompany him home. On these strolls Double Aught always stayed on the west side of the fence, which was why it had been such a shock, the day Casey Kincaid had casually shooed him away, that Double Aught had been on the east of the fence. And he had got there, apparently, without trampling down the fence around the pasture to the west. How?
“Wire cutters, that’s how,” Boyd Cotton said, when Duane asked him what he thought of this occurrence. “You wouldn’t notice unless you really ride the line, like K.K. wants me to do, but meth dealers have probably cut the wire in fifteen or twenty places around the perimeter of the big pasture, and they don’t bother to repair the cuts, particularly not this time of year, with the weeds so high. Rhinos find the cuts. But most of them seem content to stay in the big pasture, and why not? It’s where the hay racks are.”
Boyd looked wistful for a moment—a way Duane had never seen him look.
“When I was sixteen I rode line for the Matador Ranch—back when the Matador was the biggest ranch in that part of Texas.”
“Everybody’s heard of the Matador—even oilfielders like me,” Duane said.
“Now I’m old and I’m riding line again, for a ranch with thirty-nine rhinos so far. The Matador ran more than one hundred thousand cattle. But it got split up and those days are gone.”
“Long gone,” Duane said.
“Now here I am old and here I am riding line again,” Boyd said. “It makes me think I didn’t advance very far. I had the skills to do more but the opportunity passed.”
Bobby Lee had sat silent during this dialogue—then, suddenly, to their amazement, he burst into tears.
“You two are lucky,” he said, when the tear burst passed. “You both once had skills, but I never had anything except the skill to shack up with women who shoot holes in me later on. Now here I am old, and I was never fit for much of anything.”
“Bobby Lee, hush,” Boyd said, sharply. “Feeling sorry for yourself is a bad habit. Just hush!”
“Okay,” Bobby Lee said—and he did hush.
“Come ride the line with me tomorrow,” Boyd said to Duane. “Maybe we can find where your pet rhino got out.”
“Him?” Bobby Lee said. “He’s an oilman. He’s never been on a horse in his life.”
“First time for everything,” Boyd said.
Nobody disagreed.
50
BOYD COTTON FAVORED an early start. So did Duane. He walked from the cabin to the tower in off-the-shelf boots he had purchased the day before. They could use a little breaking in.
As he neared the tower he heard an airplane, and looked up to see the familiar white Cessna belonging to K.K. Slater. The boss lady was arriving. He was glad he had taken the trouble to shave, though Boyd Cotton had not; Boyd had batched most of his life, and had not made shaving much of a priority.
When he walked into the headquarters area K.K. Slater was already mounted on her bay thoroughbred. Boyd had saddled his top quarter horse and another, bulkier animal for Duane.
“You get the plug, Duane,” K.K. said. She and Boyd watched critically as Duane, no cowboy, managed an awkward mount. Still, he was on the horse, and as ready as he would ever be to ride a line.
Boyd and K.K. sat for a moment, perhaps considering the question of precedence. Who should lead, the boss lady or the top hand?
“You lead, Boyd,” K.K. said. “You know this pasture and I don’t.”
“It’s big enough we could probably manage side by side without even spooking your thoroughbred,” Boyd said.
“Let’s do it,” K.K. said. “And Duane on his plug can eat our dust.”
51
BOYD TOOK THEM west about twenty yards inside the fence line, close enough that even Duane could see what tracks were near the fence. Boyd traveled at an easy trot, rapid enough to cover the ground but slow enough to see anything that might require them to stop, examine and consult.
Once in a while K.K. would look back at Duane and smile.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Oh sure—I always meant to ride a horse sometime in my life, and now I have.”
Now and then, as they rode, they saw a rhino or two in the distance. Once they saw four togethe
r. The rhinos seemed at ease in the grassy plains country. One rhino, a yearling, scampered over toward the horsemen, but then turned tail and hurried back to his mother.
“The little boy smelled us,” K.K. said. “They don’t have very good vision. That was Leo, our baby.”
When they got about halfway around the big pasture they came to a little man-made pond—what was called a lake by most locals. The water was brown and shallow, and the heads of perhaps a dozen turtles poked up out of the water. The shallows were thick with rhino tracks.
“Several of them water here but not Duane’s pet,” Boyd said. He loosened his reins so his horse could drink. The thoroughbred shied a time or two before he stepped into the water.
Duane’s plug waded way in and drank noisily.
“I’d go skinny-dipping,” K.K. said. “But somehow you gents don’t seem like the skinny-dipping type.”
By the time they had ridden a wide circle and were headed back toward the tower they had inspected most of the rhino herd—thirty-seven out of thirty-nine, by Boyd’s count.
One rhino they didn’t see was Double Aught, the one who had the least fear of humans.
“You think he’s out?” K.K. asked.
“Yep,” Boyd said.
“Then where’s he getting out?”
“Good question,” Boyd said. “There’s no sign that he’s been near the fence.”
“Very curious,” K.K. said. “Could we have missed the sign?”
Boyd looked at her solemnly and K.K. smiled and didn’t repeat the question.
K.K. looked at Duane.
“When he follows you home which pasture does he walk in?” she asked.
Duane thought for a few minutes and realized he had no proper answer. Usually he was beyond the west fence, but not always. The most singular thing about his appearance was that he would suddenly just be there.
“I ought to know, but I don’t,” Duane said. “Seems like he disappears.”
“Maybe somebody’s letting him out one of the gates,” she suggested.
“Nope, I looked—he ain’t been through any of our gates,” Boyd said. “But the fence gets cut in a lot of places now.”
“Well, how odd,” K.K. said, as they rode home.
52
WHEN THEY GOT back to the tower Boyd unsaddled his quarter horse and turned him loose so he could have a roll in the dirt.
K.K. looked at Boyd coolly.
“That’s not my way,” she said—then she proceeded to rub down her thoroughbred. When she finished she looked at Boyd and Duane.
“Something wrong on the Rhino Ranch,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, and neither do you.”
“Do you suppose a critter as big as Double Aught could jump the fence?” Duane asked.
“Probably, but not without leaving tracks,” Boyd said.
“When did you see the big boy last?” K.K. asked Duane.
“Last night,” Duane said.
“He might have jumped out,” Boyd said. “I’ve seen bulls jump a lot higher than you’d think a bull could jump.”
“Big animals can do pretty much anything they want to,” K.K. said. “I mean, they can if they’re excited enough.”
“Why would Double Aught be excited enough to jump a fence?” Duane wondered.
“I’ve seen my share of bulls jump quite a few things—ditches and creeks and fences—but every single one of them had left a track.”
“Rhinos don’t fly—that’s what I know,” K.K. said.
Just at that moment her cell phone rang. She picked it up impatiently and listened for a minute.
“No, that can’t be,” she said loudly. “That simply cannot be,” she went on. “The rhino was here yesterday. This is simply some mistake.” She clicked off the cell phone and stuck it in her pocket. Then she glared at Boyd and Duane, as if whatever had happened was their fault.
“A rhinoceros was sighted near Amarillo,” she told them. “He was standing by I-40, watching the trucks go by.”
“Have they caught him?” Boyd asked.
“That’s the odd part,” K.K. said. “They didn’t catch him. He’s disappeared. Several hundred people claim to have seen him but no one has any idea where he is now.”
“That’s plains country—you think he’d be easy to spot,” Boyd said.
“You’d think,” K.K said. “Could I sleep in your guest room tonight, Duane? I need to stay around until I sort this out.”
“Sure,” Duane said. “You’re welcome even if you ain’t quiet as a mouse.”
K.K. sighed.
“If there’s one thing I learned in Africa it’s that great animals can do things you would never expect them to do,” she said.
No one spoke for a while, but all three of them thought about great animals, and what they might do.
“I suspect that’s true,” Boyd said. “Though it’s not been my good fortune to work with many great animals—mainly I’ve just worked with shitty-assed cows.
“I’d like to see Africa sometime,” he added. Duane had never heard Boyd Cotton express a desire to travel before.
“I know Double Aught is a great animal,” Duane said. “But, even so, could he really make it from here to Amarillo in one night?”
“I don’t really know, but the fact is I’m getting my chicken-fried steak urge,” she said. “Any takers? It’s my night to pay.”
They all went and they all ate, but Duane could not get Double Aught off his mind. There was a dearth of conversation, which probably meant that the other two couldn’t, either.
53
WHEN THEY GOT to Duane’s house K.K. took a shower, emerging finally wearing an old bathrobe she had found, by which time the question of Double Aught’s appearance in Amarillo had been explained by several news channels. The big rhinoceros standing by I-40 proved to be an inflatable replica of Double Aught, which two rodeo promoters had had made by the company that made inflatable King Kongs to hang over the opening of car lots and such.
The promoters owned up and Double Aught was deflated and hauled off in a horse trailer. For years to come, however, the inflatable rhino would often be used as a float at Panhandle rodeos, until a bucking bull with his dander up took a run at it and ripped it to shreds.
Of more immediate interest to the news channels was a terrible electrical storm, the worst ever seen in the Panhandle, which did extensive damage. Sixty-three cows at a dairy near Dalhart were struck dead by one lightning bolt: big news in the Dalhart area.
“It still doesn’t explain where Double Aught is now,” K.K. pointed out, before she went to bed.
54
BOTH BOBBY LEE and Boyd were drinking more, mainly because dealing with all the journalists who came to stake out Double Aught’s home caused their nerves to fray. “I’ve been asked more questions today than I’ve been asked in the last sixty years put together,” Bobby Lee said.
“Right,” Boyd said. “How would we know where a runaway rhino would go?”
“I think I see Duane coming, on foot,” Boyd said. “I expect he misses his walks and his walking buddy too.”
When he drew even with the tower Duane gave the two of them a wave, but didn’t stop to visit. He wanted to get on to his cabin, in case his grandson, the soon-to-be Rhodes Scholar, showed up.
A mile farther and Duane began to feel strange. It was a dark night—dark enough to be a little nervous about snakes—but he kept walking.
No snakes appeared but there was something large ahead of him, and not far ahead.
Then Double Aught grunted a time or two—not loud, but firmly.
“Welcome back yourself,” Duane said.
55
DOUBLE AUGHT stood there placidly, barely ten yards from Duane. Duane felt a deep relief, deeper than he would have been able to explain.
But he also felt concern. Double Aught was now unquestionably the most famous rhino in the world. Dozens of people with mentalities no different from that of the Colorado roughnecks were drivin
g the country roads of Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Rhino patrols had even been organized in some small towns in the region, and most of their members were of a mind-set to shoot on sight, whether Double Aught had done anything threatening or not.
It occurred to Duane that Double Aught might be hungry—and if he could be lured back to the hay rack he would have Bobby Lee and Boyd to keep an eye on him.
“The safest place for you, my friend, is the Rhino Ranch,” and he immediately started walking back along the road he had just come up. As if to prove Duane’s hunger theory, Double Aught’s stomach rumbled a time or two.
On the walk back to the observation tower Duane began to ponder an element of the situation that had not occurred to him before. In taking Double Aught home, as it were, he was ignoring the fact that the rhino’s real home was in Kenya. Maybe his big friend was homesick. Alfalfa hay might be tasty enough but food and home were different. If it turned out that Double Aught had actually gone anywhere, maybe he had been looking for Kenya.
It was a thought that put a new twist on the matter.
56
“SON OF A BITCH,” Boyd Cotton said. “Look who’s coming up the road.”
“If it’s who I think it is I don’t really want to know,” Bobby Lee said, but a second later he reversed himself and looked. There was Duane and Double Aught, coming through the gate of the compound, which Duane had opened.
In a moment Double Aught was munching contentedly on some fresh alfalfa hay.
“Where’d you find him, Duane?” Boyd asked.
“I guess we found each other,” Duane said. “Up near my cabin.”
“When I hired on for this job I figured I’d be a kind of cowboy,” Bobby Lee said. “I was thinking rhinos must be pretty much like cattle. They both have four legs and all.
“But I guess they aren’t like cattle at all,” he said. “So where does that leave us, Boyd?”
“Confused, but that’s not fatal,” Boyd said.
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