Dark Moon Crossing (Kendall O'Dell Mystery series)

by Sylvia Nobel

  Ahead, the road seemed to go on forever. “How are you able to monitor a place this size‌ It seems like you’d have to employ a hundred hands just to check out the property every day.”

  He chuckled. “I would if I didn’t own an airplane.”

  “No kidding‌ Well, I guess that makes sense.”

  “Look over there,” Champ said, wagging a finger towards a tower perhaps thirty feet high with a small shack snuggled at the base. At first I thought it might be a cellular transmission tower but, as we drew closer, I could see a man at the top sitting on a platform, binoculars trained on the southern horizon. “That’s the newest addition in our private war against Mexico. At night we use infrared binoculars and I want to tell you, we hit the jackpot a couple of weeks back when we snagged eight packers loaded up with cocaine and heroine sneaking across about two in the morning. It was pretty nerve-wracking, because one of those suckers was armed and meant business. But, we overpowered him and held the bunch of them until our Border Patrol guys got here.”

  We’d stepped out of the truck and had walked no more than a few yards when a stocky young guy with a big handlebar mustache wearing a BEAUMONT RANCH PATROL sweatshirt came running up to meet us. “Hey, Champ. Glad you’re here. I was just getting ready to drive over to get you.”

  “Rob, what’s going on‌”

  “Trouble. Big trouble.”

  “Oh, Christ, what now‌”

  “We’ve had company again. I don’t know how we missed ‘em, but we did.” He paused, flinging me an uneasy glance. “You’ll probably want to come out and see this by yourself.” It was obvious by his grave tone that something was seriously wrong.

  Champ turned to me. “You’d better stay here.”

  I stuck out my chin. “What about the education you promised me‌”

  He hesitated a few seconds then, “Come on.”

  At speeds approaching the reckless level, we followed the curtain of dust billowing behind Rob’s truck, bouncing along a washboard road hugged by a thick jungle of mesquite, cat’s claw, palo verde trees and giant yucca plants. Lots of places for people to hide. At the foot of a rocky slope, the road opened into a small clearing where a windmill spun madly in the lonesome wind beside a series of weathered wooden stock pens. Adjacent to them stood an enormous corrugated steel stock tank spray-painted with the words La proxima vez, los vaqueros, no las vacas. In front of it lay half a dozen brown mounds. As we drew closer, my insides clenched when I realized the inert lumps were not rocks, but cows. Dead cows. Disemboweled cows. I fired a look at Champ as he jammed on the brakes. “Gaawd daaamn!” he bellowed, his rosy complexion fading to the color of ash. He threw the door open and leaped out to join Rob, so I grabbed my camera and hurried to catch up with them.

  “How many‌” he asked in a hoarse voice, surveying the grisly scene.

  So far, I’ve counted ten heifers. But that’s not the worst.” He gestured for Champ to follow him and threw me a look of warning which I chose to ignore. My heart was bucking and kicking with anxious expectation as the younger man wordlessly pointed to the tank. Intense dread pressed down on me as I stood beside Champ and peeked over the side. It took a few seconds for my reluctant brain to accept what my eyes were seeing. “Good God.” Recoiling, I stared down at the bodies of several bludgeoned calves. Or rather, pieces of calves. Several tiny heads with wide lifeless eyes stared back; some hooves and large chunks of flesh lay at the dark bottom of the tank while other unidentifiable parts floated in the choppy blood-reddened water. The sickening spectacle sent tremors of revulsion throughout my entire being and it was all I could do to keep from gagging. I turned away quickly, inhaling deep breaths to quell the nausea while blinking back enraged tears. Considering that I’d been warned not to come, it wouldn’t do for me to lose my breakfast.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Champ thundered, pounding the side of the tank with his fist over and over. He let fly a string of profanities that would have made an Irish pub owner blush and worked himself into such a scarlet-faced rage, I thought he might have a heart attack. And then, in a poignant move that ripped at my heartstrings, he suddenly fell silent, collapsed to one knee and rested his forehead on one hand.

  I finally gathered my wits enough to get the camera focused. The picture of this fiercely proud man, weeping alongside the butchered carcasses of once peacefully grazing cows, was worth far more than a thousand words.

  I stole a look at Rob, hands rammed in his jean pockets, his mouth a grim line of determination. At that moment the enormity of the situation began to fully sink in. Whoever had committed this heinous act was no doubt long gone and would suffer no consequences. The two of us exchanged an unspoken glance and walked towards the truck to give Champ some time to compose himself. “Do you read Spanish‌” I asked in a shaky voice, setting my camera on the passenger seat.

  “A little.”

  “Do you know what that says‌”

  He hitched his shoulders, squinting at the macabre message. “Something like, next time the cowboys, not the cows.”

  “I see. So this is revenge for apprehending the drug smugglers last week.”

  “Most likely.” He glared southward for long seconds before turning back to me with an odd glitter of triumph in his brown eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, these Mexican bastards are just taking up space on the planet. They’ve gone too far this time and they’ll pay a heavy price for this. Believe me, they’ll pay.”

  15

  Immobilized by shock, I stood by the truck on jellied knees waiting for Champ to return. The brisk morning breeze had increased to wind gusts of perhaps thirty miles per hour, turning the air a dusty saffron color as it swooshed through the tawny grass and whistled around the cactus spines. Again, it played havoc with my hair and pelted my face with stinging granules of sand. The dull roar made conversation with Rob nearly impossible, so I retreated to the cab of the truck just as Champ came trudging up, his massive shoulders hunched against the wind. He seemed to have aged twenty years. The bright gleam of pride in his blue eyes had vanished and the lacework of wrinkles on his ashen face crumpled into deep canyons of bitterness.

  He stopped to talk to Rob, but the mournful keening made it difficult for me to interpret what he was saying. From his hand gestures and the few fragments of words that reached my ears, I gathered he was instructing him to round up a crew to dispose of the hideous mess. I shivered again and rubbed my arms. Would I ever be able to banish that horrific scene from my mind‌ Probably not, but it had accomplished what no amount of rhetoric could. This really was a war. It was frightening to realize that the perpetrators of this savagery were capable of inflicting harm on anyone who stood in their way. No doubt the threat to ‘get the cowboys next’ would be taken very seriously and it resurrected thoughts of Agent Bob Shirley’s questionable death. If indeed he had been involved in a smuggling operation, as the authorities suspected, had he also become a victim, paying with his life for refusing to cooperate any longer‌ Even in light of his family’s vehement denials, had he decided to take his own life rather than endure a tortuous death at the hands of such ruthless people‌

  When Champ finally finished, Rob tore off in his truck while we headed back towards the ranch house, riding in morose silence for long minutes before he noisily cleared his throat. “I’m sorry you had to witness such an awful sight. You gonna be okay‌”

  “I think so. What about you‌”

  He darted a quick look at me. “Young lady, I need to ask you a big favor.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  Apparently searching for the right words, he rubbed his chin a few times before continuing. “It would help me out a whole lot if you’d agree to not say anything about what you saw this morning.”

  My mouth dropped. “Why‌”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. Can you imagine what kind of an effect something like this will have on our paying guests and any future guests‌ If they get wind of this, they’ll panic and stampede out of
here like frightened cattle.” At the mention of cattle, he stopped and swallowed hard. “Word of mouth will be bad enough, but if you print this in your newspaper, it’s gonna deep six the only viable business we’ve got going right now.” When I didn’t say anything, he threw me another anxious glance. “We’ve also got a big chunk of this place up for sale and something like this would definitely scare away potential buyers.”

  I frowned. “Do you think it’s wise to keep it a secret‌ Aren’t you even going to alert the sheriff’s office or the Border Patrol‌ Somebody‌”

  “Yes, yes, in due time, but I need a few days to decide how we’re going handle this…latest crisis.”

  “What can you do other than turn a blind eye to all illegals from this point forward‌ I mean, how can you differentiate between innocent immigrants crossing to get work and hard core drug traffickers‌”

  “We can’t. Except for the one guy in the group who was armed, the rest of the people we detained last week were just average guys, doing it for money or because they or their family members were being threatened. That’s how these smuggling operations work. The top dogs rarely get caught whether they’re trafficking in drugs or people.”

  We made solemn eye contact for a fleeting second before he returned his attention to the road. I sighed inwardly thinking about what great copy it would have made, but the dull sheen of hopelessness reflected in his gaze made my decision easy. “Okay, I’ll keep it under my hat.” This weekend had to have set a record for the number of promises I’d sworn to keep.

  His long-drawn-out sigh broadcast profound relief. “Thanks. I really appreciate that.”

  Just beyond the rise ahead, the roof of the stable was visible so I knew we were only a few minutes from the house. “No problem. But, there were a few more questions I wanted to ask you before I head home.”

  “What’s that‌”

  I switched my recorder on again. “Do you think there is any connection between this incident and the other mutilated cattle that were found on your property during the past two years‌”

  His quick glance held incredulity. “How’d you know about that‌”

  I reminded him again of my association with Walter. “I don’t think there’s any connection at all,” he said, pulling up near the kitchen door and shutting off the engine.

  “What makes you so sure‌”

  “This thing today makes me madder than hell because I know damn well it was carried out by a bunch of no good cowardly dogs, but that other stuff…well, that was just about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. There was no blood, no footprints around, nothing for the authorities to go on. It’s still a mystery.”

  “Any theories‌”

  He arched a salt and pepper brow. “You mean do I believe that creatures from outer space landed on my ranch and surgically removed organs from my cattle‌”

  “That’s what some people are suggesting.”

  He fell silent for a few seconds. “I like to think I’m a pretty normal down to earth fellow but, to tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t have any explanation for what happened out there.” He reached for the door handle and then turned back to me with a troubled scowl. “I can tell you this much. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing, but why anyone would do such a thing, I don’t know.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that there was someone nearby who might have the expertise—his own brother-in-law, Dean Pierce. But, when I pictured his gentle treatment of Marmalade, a tremor of guilt tiptoed through me. How could I even entertain such a thought‌

  He stuck out a callused hand and I took it. “Kendall, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. Next time Tally comes down this way, I hope you’ll see fit to come with him and visit us again, hopefully under more pleasant circumstances.”

  “That would be good.” I thanked him again for his time and promised I’d send him a copy of the article when it was published. There was a buzz of activity about the grounds as we emerged from the truck. Champ explained that ranch hands were preparing one group for the cattle roundup and another for a trail ride and picnic. He excused himself, saying he had to go talk to his ranch foreman and hurried away towards the barn. No doubt he’d be instructing him to keep the vacationers away from the scene of carnage.

  I busied myself snapping a few photos of the main house, gardens and smiling couples on horseback. Four children, including Brett, were squealing with delight as Bethany led one of the llamas around on a halter. It was an idyllic setting and reinforced my pledge to keep silent about the shocking episode. If any of these visitors had the slightest inkling of what had happened just a few miles from here, they’d be rightly horrified and probably on the next plane out. I wondered when Champ planned to tell the rest of the family about the incident. I could only imagine Jason’s reaction.

  I checked my watch, surprised to see that it was only nine o’clock. Good. I still had plenty of time to get a few more shots of the ranch and make my calls before meeting Payton for lunch.

  I strolled around the back of the house, snapping pictures of the cozy guest cottages and some of the kids petting sheep in the small enclosure adjacent to the barn. The children cooperated beautifully, mugging for the camera, and I got a great shot of Brett getting his face washed by an enthusiastic pygmy goat. Then showing off as kids will do, he began rolling around in the straw and dung until Bethany suddenly reappeared from the barn, shouting, “Brett, stop that!”

  She hurried in the gate and began slapping at his smeared clothes, grumbling, “Now you’re going to have to change before the hayride. The rest of you kids can go on into the barn. Tell Mr. Simms I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  Giggling, the children dutifully trooped to the barn and Bethany turned to face me. “My folks told me you’re going to write an article on the Sundog. I hope you got some great pictures,” she said, issuing me a sunny smile that showed no trace of her earlier sarcasm or animosity. “We could sure use a little good publicity.”

  “Glad to help out,” I murmured warily, taken aback at her sudden turnabout.

  “Did you get some pictures of our llamas‌” she asked, unnecessarily fluffing her perfectly coifed curls.

  “Just from a distance.”

  “Do you know much about them‌”

  “Not a lot.”

  She clapped her hands together. “I absolutely love llamas. They are the most fascinating animals. Why don’t you go on over and get some closer shots,” she suggested. “See that big black and white one‌ That’s Maxie, my favorite. He loves to pose for the camera. Have fun!” She grabbed Brett’s hand and pulled him to the gate saying, “Come on now, let’s get you some clean clothes.”

  The little boy shot an anxious look over his shoulder. “But, Mama, you know that…”

  “Shhhh! Hurry up!” she cut him off, pushing him ahead of her. “Everybody’s waiting.” She scooped him up in her arms, practically running with him to the kitchen door.

  Still harboring vague suspicion at her unexpected friendliness, I turned back towards the llama corral. There were four of the fluffy-looking creatures and they all had their camel-like faces craned eagerly in my direction, ears straight up, their inquisitive eyes locked into mine. The big black and white one Bethany had mentioned was at the far end of the corral, grazing. With caution, I approached the smallest one and gingerly extended my hand, which it sniffed before stretching its neck upward to explore my entire face with gentle little snuffling sounds. “Well, aren’t you the most darling thing,” I cried, petting the woolly coat while watching the others prance back and forth. I focused the camera and got some great close-ups of their large eyes and seemingly smiling mouths.

  All at once, Maxie looked up and trotted across the enclosure. Poor fellow. He probably didn’t like being left out of the limelight. The others backed up as he approached. “Hey there, big guy, you want to be included, don’t you‌” I crooned, as he rushed up to me. Just as I reached my hand up to pet him, his ears
laid back and he emitted a strange gurgling grunt before proceeding to spray my face with dank, sour-smelling saliva that reeked of wild onions.

  “Oh, man!” I shouted, jumping back and wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt. At that exact second, I knew I’d been had. Set up. And Brett had tried to warn me. Angrily, I swung around expecting to see Bethany at one of the windows doubled over in mirth, but saw nothing but the usual ranch activity. I should never have let my guard down. “What a total dufus you are,” I ranted to myself, still trying to clear the nauseating smell from my nostrils as I stomped towards the house and pushed open the side door. I was heading towards the stairs to retrieve my overnight bag when Twyla hailed me from her seat in front of a computer monitor in the farthest corner of the kitchen. “Oh, hello, Kendall, did you enjoy your tour‌”

  What to say‌ I mustered a wan smile. “Well, it was certainly memorable.”

  “Good. Listen, Tally phoned while you were out with Champ. He said he’d be at the ranch until noon if you want to call him back.”

  If I wanted to‌ A rush of elation warming me, I backtracked to the wall phone. But just as I lifted the receiver, a giggling Bethany rushed in followed closely by the strapping wrangler she’d been flirting with when I’d arrived yesterday. Seeing me, she slapped his hand away from the seat of her ultra-tight jeans and chirped, “Did you get some good pictures of Maxie‌”

  I had to reach way down deep inside to control the blaze of fury searing my chest. Coolly, I answered, “They couldn’t have been better.” Would the wretched smell permeating my nose ever go away‌

  “I’m so glad.” Assuming an expression of innocent righteousness, she breezed across the room. Who did she think she was fooling‌ Bitch.

  “Mornin’, ma’am,” the ranch hand said to me while flicking Twyla a deferential nod as she rose and moved across the room towards me.