by Bart Paul
Lester paused a bit, then hung up. He didn’t say anything for a minute, then he whooped as loud as he did the one time he tried bull-riding down at Bishop when we were seventeen and he lied about his age to make the entry and a gruella bull named Border Patrol bucked him damn near over the chute.
“That was him,” Lester said. “Damn. He was right there in that club. I just figured I’d see if they know him, but he was right there in the club next to the damn phone.”
“Well you surely played him like a trout on a line, bud. Jesus, Lester, you gave him everything but your mother’s maiden name and your social security number.”
“So?” he said. “I sure enough got his attention.” He got that cocky look. “I bet he’s running some pretty big numbers in that rich boy head of his right now.”
“And you’re not?”
“Wow,” Callie said. “This is so cool. But from what we saw, he’s going to be pissed we found the plane.” She kissed Lester good-bye and picked up her purse. “He might pay us not to tell.” She gave me a what-do-you-think-about-that look. “Come by the restaurant later and let’s talk this out. I can’t wait to meet this Jerry Q. He’s a hottie and he is rich.” She kissed Lester again like he was rich too. I watched her head for the door.
“Well you two have wound the clock on this now, for sure.”
Callie just laughed and ran out to her Nissan, fired it up, and drove off down the dirt drive that circled toward the lake road. We watched that black car bob through the aspen, then get lost in the glare of late sun on the water as she turned toward town.
Chapter Four
We followed Callie into Piute Meadows about six. Lester was quiet for a time. It always galled him when she talked about other guys that way, or when guys like her boss talked flirty with her. He put a boot up on the dash.
“What you need to do,” he said, “is trade this damn truck in for something newer. No wonder you haven’t got a girl.”
“Think that would do it?”
“Why sure. I know this old Dodge Ram was hot stuff when we were in high school, ‘Oooh, Tommy’s got a winch on his bumper,’ but you could go to Fallon Auto Mall and get a teeny-bit-used Ram four-by-four—Cummins and all.” He pulled his boot off my dash. “Ram Tough,” he said like the old commercials. “Damn truck’s older than you are.”
“Least it’s paid for.”
He knew I’d seen the pink overdue notices for his Ford all over the trailer where we bunked. “Well, there is that,” he said.
There wasn’t much traffic on the lake road. I checked out every car and truck coming my way like a bad habit.
“I surely would have liked it better if he’d just had a suitcase full of cash in that airplane,” Lester said when we were about a mile from town, “or a bag full of dope.”
“What the hell would you do with a bag full of dope?”
“I’d sell that sucker,” he said.
“You’d get yourself shot the first ten minutes.”
He was quiet again until I parked behind the Sierra Peaks. He didn’t get out of the truck right away. A white sheriff ’s cruiser was parked across the lot next to Albert Coffey’s beat-up Firebird.
“Old GQ should be here in a couple of days,” he said. “So even if we report the crash to the sheriff, he knows we’re his boys.”
“Not if, Lester. When.”
“That’s what I meant,” he said. “All I’m saying is we’re going to be in solid with this guy.”
“What else did he ask you?”
“He asked what else we found. Like any personal stuff.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“That we didn’t find a thing,” he said. “Just the body with the clothes blowing around. That sort of stuff. He seemed glad his old man wasn’t just a couple of bones scattered all over the mountain.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah,” Lester said. “Exactly that.”
“Well, the County will fly the body out as soon as we tell the sheriff. He’ll have his daddy back in one piece, then that’ll be that.”
Lester just grinned like that wouldn’t be that. We went in for drinks and dinner.
There were a few Dominion cowboys at the bar. We nodded and said hi and they said hi back, but they tended to keep to themselves. They looked more serious than usual. Ed was behind the bar. I said hi to him too, but Lester didn’t. We could see Sarah Cathcart sitting in the dining room with Tony Aguilar. She was in uniform packing her automatic, her handcuffs, and full rig, but she still looked as pretty as she did when she was college rodeo barrel-racing champ and I was in the ninth grade. It must have been her cruiser parked out back. Lester stopped at their table to give her a hard time.
“Hi, Les,” she said.
“Hey deputy,” he said, “hot date with the silver-haired devil?”
“Not quite,” Sarah said.
“I wish,” Tony said. “Sarah called me for a medivac this afternoon.” He put his hand on his heart. “Three years up here and she don’t give me the time of day unless somebody’s lost or dying.” He leaned forward toward us, but pointed to her. “Such dangerous curves and me with no brakes.” He had just the teensiest accent.
We semi-laughed. Sarah looked like she had heard it all before.
“Austin Lambert had a bronc go over with him in the Dominion sorting pens,” Sarah said. “Knocked him cold and broke his pelvis in two places. Tony flew him to Reno.”
“That explains why his pals look so sour,” Lester said.
“Have you boys been out there since Dominion bought the place from Allison’s?” Tony asked. “New barn, new bunkhouse with a flatscreen, new corrals. Pretty serious cash outlay. I guess those that have it, spend it.” He sipped a big Scotch.
“Investment, Tony,” Lester said, “that’s the name of the game. Hell, you sound like maybe you’ll quit the chopper business and go to buckarooin’ for Dominion.”
Even Sarah had to smile at that picture.
“They’ve got no buckaroos out there,” she said, “only cowboys.”
“Yeah, it’s no Flying W.” Lester grinned over at me. “That’s for sure.”
Sarah started back in on her salad, then turned and looked right up at me.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Tommy.”
“Long day, is all. I’m just trying to figure how old Tony could keep his tennis tan under a Stetson and chinks.”
She laughed, but looked like she expected me to say more. I grabbed Lester’s arm and dragged him to a booth.
“We’ll catch you two lovebirds later,” he said.
We sat down and ordered a couple of Crown Royals and rib eyes from Judy Burmeister without looking at the menu.
“What’s galling you?” Lester asked.
“Sarah. I never felt antsy around the law before. Like I had something to hide. I don’t like the feeling.”
“Oh,” he said, “I thought you were just pissed that Tony was beating your time.”
“She’s just like a big sister and you know it. She’s been listening to your kind of flirty nonsense her whole life. She ain’t going to hear any of it from me.”
“Easy big fella,” he said. “We got nothing to hide. We found a wreck. We’re going to let the right folks know.” He grabbed some garlic bread. “You worry too much.” He ate some bread. “She likes those slick old foreign devils, though. Got no time for us young packers. Remember that French ski instructor?” He studied Sarah across the room. “You ever notice she wears her hair up when she’s on duty, but when she’s out with some handsome rascal like Tony that palomino hair is hanging down as pretty as a damn rodeo queen?”
“No shit, Lester.”
“That girl knows what she’s got going on,” he said. “Tony must make some serious coin. You know what a chopper-jockey charges per hour for a medivac.”
“It ain’t like he works every day. I bet the busiest he was all winter was the week he and everybody else was looking for the billionaire, and th
at was before Christmas.”
“He owns his own business, pard,” Lester said. He was watching Judy give Sarah and Tony their check. “Women love that.” He shoved the bread basket at me and tried to talk with Tony’s accent. “Black Label, baby, and hold the ice.”
“When he started, he had a second chopper and a second pilot on payroll.”
“Times are hard,” he said.
Callie came out from the kitchen to bring us our steaks herself. She slid into the booth next to Lester and slipped her arm through his.
“Hey girl,” he said, “you’re interfering with my eating.”
“That’ll be the day.”
“Thank you, Tommy,” she said.
We dug into our food. Say what you want about her, that girl could cook. We all looked over when Sarah and Tony got up after splitting the check. He left through the bar. She came over and sat in the booth next to me.
“So Sarah,” Lester said, “any excitement us citizens should know about?”
“Not unless you’re Austin Lambert,” she said.
Lester looked like he was about to burst, but Sarah wasn’t paying him any mind. She looked over at me again.
“My dad’s got a three-year-old colt just shipped down from Idaho and needs someone good to start him,” she said. “When he heard you were back, he asked me if I thought you’d have the time.”
“I’d like that. I’ll just need to tell Harvey.”
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “I’m giving Albert Coffey a ride back up to Power Line Creek at sunup tomorrow to make sure he gets there.”
“Good enough. I’d like that a lot.”
“Figured you would.” She kissed me on the cheek and got up. Callie and Lester waited until she was halfway through the bar before they gave me the old woo-woo. I didn’t really mind. I was sort of giving me the old woo-woo myself.
* * *
We had our horses grained and saddled and were inside finishing our breakfast about six-thirty the next day, when we heard a pickup. I looked out the window of the trailer.
“Damn. Run and catch us a packhorse, Lester. Saddle him quick.”
“Why?” he said. “It’s just Harv.”
“Because we lied to him about having trail to fix, is why. Remember? Best gather some tools. Shit.”
“I keep telling you Tommy,” he said, “quit worrying.” But he got up fast and shinnied out to the corral with a halter and snagged a big gray standing close to the fence. He was adjusting the britchen on the pack saddle by the time Harvey got out of the truck.
“Jay-sus Chroist,” Harvey said, “ain’t you boys left yet?”
“Hell, Harv,” Lester said, “we were waiting on you. Thought you’d like to ride up with us. May said a little of that shovel work would slim down that tummy of yours.”
Harvey just grunted, but I could see he was half-smiling. He’d take a lot of ribbing from Lester. He pulled a cardboard box from the bed of the truck.
“Got you this alternator,” he said, and walked over to the generator parked under some aspens. He lit a Winston and stared at the thing, then set the box in the dirt.
Lester went to help him while I got some pack bags out of the storage trailer we used as a tack room. They drained the big glass bulb on the fuel filter and blew out the fuel line and did all sorts of other nonsense putting in the new alternator. After I packed the tools in the bags and laid out a tarp and lashrope, I went to work with a hammer and spikes fixing corral poles for a bit. I was sitting at our plank table outside the trailer riveting a new strap on a pack bag when I heard the generator fire up. Harvey came around the trailer wiping his hands, then sat down across the table and lit another smoke. I nodded a well-done, but didn’t say anything. The generator was like an F-16 taking off. Our three horses stood at the long hitching rack sort of dozing, ignoring the noise.
“I ran into Sarah on the way here,” Harvey said loud. “She’s going to bring you that colt of her dad’s. She’s going to pay me board. I told her she didn’t need to. That you’d use it as a lead horse before long, but she wanted to give me money. You know Sarah.”
“Yeah, that’s Sarah.”
“I got a box of groceries for you from May,” he said. “Ought to last you a week or so.” He looked down past the hitching rack where Lester was bringing up the box. Lester had a lot a hustle when it came to groceries. Harvey stood up, stuck his smoke in his mouth, and scratched his belly.
“If you boys are going to fix trail today you better rattle your hocks.” He grinned. “Albert’s back shoeing mules, so you two are off the hook for a few days. Next time you come up to eat, maybe one of you can drive Albert’s Pontiac up for him.”
“Sure thing. Thank May for us for the groceries.”
He headed back to the truck and drove off as Lester stowed the food, eating cookies out of the bag.
“So you’re sure you want me to take back this fine Rolex?” Lester asked.
“Don’t start.”
“The guy will be here in another day or so and a watch might be the last thing he’s even thinking about,” he said. “Then if he does mention it, we can tell him we just took it for safekeeping. Then nobody’d know different.”
“Would you believe you?”
“You got me there,” he said.
“Just grab your gear. A body robber is the worst form of human on the planet. You don’t want to be known as one.”
We buckled on our chinks and spurs, and were packed and horseback ten minutes later. It was already closer to noon than breakfast.
We hit a long trot to get us out of the Jeffrey pine, kicking up dust as we went. We slowed to a walk on a rise above the creek, and Lester took the pack horse for a while. It was warm for June, but a little breeze kept it about perfect. I was glad we were almost done with this escapade.
“So how come you didn’t ride for Dominion when you heard they’d bought Allison’s?” Lester asked all of a sudden.
“Harvey asked me to pack up here with your sorry ass while he tried to get the place on Power Line Creek cranked up. Can’t say no to Harvey and May.”
“You don’t want to pack your whole life,” he said, “that’s what you always told me.”
“So?”
“So just I wondered why a well-traveled buckaroo like yourself wouldn’t ride for Dominion,” he said. “Be cow boss or something.”
“Still might. I thought one last season in Aspen Canyon sounded pretty good, though. Like turning back the clock. And a damn sight less corporate. Thought I’d keep you out of trouble. Shows what I know.”
“Oh, right,” he said.
“If you think Dominion Land and Livestock is such a hot ticket, why don’t you work for ’em?”
“Maybe I will,” he said, but he looked like he wasn’t going anywhere. “They pay better than Harvey.”
“You’ll need that if you’re going to marry Callie Dean.”
He laughed out loud. We were climbing through some sagebrush past the second drift fence and got a nose-full of that good sage and dust smell. It grew up to the top of the rock ridge on our right side. Off to our left across the first meadow here was big timber on the ridge that spilled down in front of us across the whole canyon. In a week or so the first cows and calves would be herded up here to graze for the summer. The sky shimmered over the jaggedy peaks at the canyon head.
“So you told Callie you only use my full name to piss me off,” he said.
“I was just kidding her. She has the contrary notion you’re something special, so it’s easy to get her goat.”
He liked hearing that.
“Actually, I said it’s a good name and your dad gave it to you and you ought to be proud of it.”
“I guess this Jerry Q isn’t so proud of his old man’s name,” Lester said.
“Seems like.”
“Okay,” he said, “what’s the best thing your dad gave you?”
“This slick-fork Franklin saddle with a 3-B Visalia tree and his old
Remington two-seventy.”
“I bet you shot better guns,” he said.
“But not nicer ones.”
“What else he give you?”
“My good name. That’s about all we start out with, I guess.”
“You miss him?” he asked.
“All the damn time.”
Chapter Five
We left the last meadow and wound through shady pine, fallen timber, bogs, and aspen thickets, then broke out onto the loose shale of The Roughs. We cleared the shale and the trail narrowed then we disappeared into the trees.
It was another hour before we left the tamarack above the forks and started climbing around the outer rim of the cirque and got in sight of the plane. We both knew that something was wrong as soon as we saw it. We kept on riding past the avalanche site until we could get some altitude for a closer look. We stopped the horses after a bit and I pulled out my rifle scope. There was no mistake now that we knew what to look for. I handed the scope to Lester. He stared through it for just a second then handed it back.
“The hell?” he said.
“The body’s gone.”
“Shit-fire,” he said. “How?”
I stowed the scope and we made tracks for the bottom of the snowfield, clattering through the rocks with the mahogany scratching on the leather of our chinks. The snow had melted some in only the two days since we’d ridden there. I pulled up at the whitebark pines and swung off. We tied up and loosened our cinches. Since we never did plan on working trail, the load on the packhorse was so light we left him packed. Neither of us said a word. It just felt like doom up there.
Lester pulled a shovel off the pack on the big gray to carry with him. We started tramping up through the snowfield in our own tracks like before. Lester used the shovel like a long ice axe, but it didn’t stop him from slipping and falling a couple of times on the frozen places. The closer we got, the more we could see that things weren’t the same.
The body was gone and all the clothes had been picked up. The spot the body had sat on had been raked off and fluffed up with sand and pine duff to cover the ooze the corpse had left when it started thawing. Even the boxer shorts were snatched from the tree. Lester made a move for the cockpit, but I motioned for him to stay back and not touch a thing.