“Just a minute!”
In just over one minute Doc did the same amount of house cleaning he normally did in one week. He stuffed some dirty jeans under a couch cushion as he reached for the door.
“Dottie! What a pleasant surprise! Come in, come in!”
“Thanks, Doc.” Doc got a free pass for cleavage-staring when Dottie held up a white cardboard box and opened it. “Would you like some of these steaks? Somebody gave me a huge box of steaks and I’m trying to get rid of them.”
“Something wrong with the steaks?”
“I’m a vegetarian.”
Doc continued to stare intently in the general direction of the steaks and nodded sagely like he was really thinking about it. Dottie continued: “I thought you might know if there’s a charity somewhere in the area that could use some ten pound boxes of steaks?” Doc’s gaze had not wavered, but seemed to be going a little dreamy.
“Doc?”
“Huh?”
“The steaks?”
“Oh, uh, sure. I’ll take a few, let me put them in the fridge. Would you like something to drink?” Doc thought he could cook one for the little girl who came to his back door at night, but then remembered she’d disappeared. “Maybe the orphanage would like some. We can give them a call.”
After getting Dottie safely seated on a recently cleared couch, Doc cleaned the kitchen in record time. Then he served beer in teacups after apologizing for being out of tea and beer glasses.
A phone call made both the orphanage and Dottie quite happy, so Doc launched into recounting the high points of his latest screenplay to his charming and fascinated guest.
“That’s wonderful, Doc! The part about the horny sea monster and the gas truck is hilarious.” The lady realtor took a sip out of the teacup without taking her eyes off her host. “I never knew you were so talented. Have any of your screenplays been made into movies?”
Doc lost his smile and looked down.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Doc. I didn’t mean to – ”
“That’s okay. Those movie people have the foresight of mealworms, but at least they pay me well.” Doc shrugged. “How’s the real estate game going? I guess you’re the hottest realtor in Possum Row these days.”
Dottie blushed just a little.
“I’m doing all right.” Doc got a wink. “I even got a nibble on this place.”
This was a surprise for Doc since the asking price he’d given when he listed with Dottie was quite high.
“Really? From whom?”
Dottie set her cup and saucer down and was all business. “That’s the strange part, I’m not sure who it is. A company called Cowmore International sent me an e-mail this morning. Said they were interested.”
“Cowmore? Never heard of them.”
“Me either. I did a search on the Internet, but couldn’t find anything. They seemed familiar with the property, though. I’d almost think it was someone local.” Dottie knocked back the contents of her teacup. “I thought you might know.”
“Nope, but if it’s someone from around here, I know who’d be on top of it.”
Ten minutes later they were back from Pedro’s with two more quarts of beer and an answer. Doc filled the lady’s cup with beer.
“I figured Pedro would know. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it yourself. I mean, aren’t you and that cattle rancher keeping company these days?”
Dottie coughed beer onto the floor.
“Are you serious?”
“Well, I saw – ”
“For the record, I have never, nor will I ever, have anything to do with that blowhard redneck. He keeps sending me flowers and boxes of steaks, and I keep telling him to shove off.” The best smile to come across Doc’s face in weeks showed up just then. “It’s not funny, Doc. The man is a real pain in the ass.”
“Sorry, it’s just, I mean…I’m happy to hear you’re not going out with him.”
The vision of womanhood sitting mere inches above Doc’s furnace-cleaning jeans started a smile of her own.
“Oh? You are?”
Doc and Dottie were both educated and mature adults, so they blushed and fidgeted like children for only a minute or two before Doc cleared his throat just as Dottie’s cell phone buzzed.
She had a deluxe phone with the type of quick-draw holster favored by realtors. After a short exchange on the phone she apologized profusely before dashing off to meet a client. Doc was going to ask Dottie, but instead asked the ceiling after he took a long drink from a quart bottle of beer.
“I wonder why Buck Kracker would want to buy my place?”
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
23
Hazel’s Homecoming
He could hear them singing old possum-rancher songs before he could see them. The full contingent of possum wranglers passed by the front porch of the old ranch house in the first light of day. Each man waved or tipped his hat towards Taco Bob sitting there in his rocker, just a-grinning. It had been a helluva night.
Skunk had been right about the suspicious van parked in the bushes. The entire Dalton gang was fast asleep inside, and the possum ranchers had George and Lenny hogtied before they knew what was going on.
The Daltons went in the back of Taco Bob’s pickup for the ride to the sheriff’s office, and with some help from Doc they got the reward money. It was just enough to spring Hazel and buy one bottle of whiskey – which Taco Bob kept stealing glances at, sitting there on a table.
“I sure could go for a short one, but I best wait on the boys.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Everyone was cleaned up in record time. Horse brought one of the big buckets of water from the creek to Hop, then joined the others filing onto the porch. A light rain had settled the dust and cleared the air during the night, and birds were welcoming the sunrise with song. Hazel stomped the mud off his shoes before coming onto the porch. He had a flower in his hat and a big smile on his face.
“Damn, but it’s good to be back ranching! I’d about thought you fellas had forgot about me. I was surprised as a dog with two tails in a June snowstorm when y’all showed up last night!”
Taco Bob reached for the bottle, and before he could get the top spun off, a glass had appeared in the hand of every man.
“Well, we’re happy to have you back. We been wanting to spring you for a while, but as you know, we’ve been having to deal with some serious financial constraints of late.”
Each man held his glass of whiskey, then toasted Hazel. The men sipped, smacked their lips, commented on the fine quality of the liquor, and sipped some more until their glasses were dry. Wiry little Hazel got misty-eyed when someone asked if he’d like to say a few words.
“Well, my pa always said if you eat a live toady-frog every morning that nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
A round of uncertain but generally agreeing grunts and mumbles followed this profound speech. The bottle went around again and the rest of the liquor was poured into the glasses. A muddy Hop showed at the doorway to the house just in time for the last of it. Hop held up his glass.
“Mud in eye!”
The men all tossed back their drinks and then Hazel gave the cook a good look.
“Hop, how come you’re all dirty?”
“Well lun dly. Dig new well.” The man just shrugged, then lit up a smile. “Special dinner this morning for White Devils! Flesh labbit stew!” There erupted a simultaneous chorus of Pavlonian stomach rumblings from the men. “Almost leady! Soon come!” The Chinaman poked Hazel in the chest with a long, bony finger.
“You in jail? Look hungly!”
“The vittles there was a mite lacking. I lost ten pounds in jail.” Which was no small thing for a man who normally weighed just over a hundred pounds, soaking wet.
Pete spoke up. “You don’t look no scrawnier than usual. Somebody must have hollowed you out.”
Hazel licked out his glass.
“Almost. Since there ain’t much else to do in jail, I ate a
lot the first day or two. Got the bowel storms something fierce and ain’t ate much since.”
He held up his shirt for a quick showing of skin and bones. “Only thing kept me going was thinking about Hop’s cooking.” The right words and a world-class pathetic look worked. Hop took Hazel gently by the arm and made little cooing sounds as he led Hazel towards the kitchen.
“Come, come, come.”
Hazel looked over his shoulder and gave the men a wink to go along with the whiskey glow and beautiful sunrise they were enjoying. Contented smiles and sighs ruled.
Taco Bob, Pete, and Horse had hauled the Daltons into town and sprung Hazel. They’d learned a few interesting things but hadn’t had a chance to compare notes. Plus the rest of the men needed to be filled in, so Taco Bob started.
“Well, I sure am proud to see them Daltons back in jail. Having two desperate outlaws gunning for you can tend to work on your nerves after a while.”
The possum ranchers had wanted to make sure their ticket to the cash reward would still be there when they got to town, so Horse rode in back with the Daltons. The big man took off his hat and cleared his throat before giving his report.
“Big Lenny just kinda laid there and took a nap, but George sure did talk a lot on the way to town.”
Taco Bob looked up from holding the whiskey bottle over his glass so the last drop or two wouldn’t go to waste.
“What did that scoundrel have to say?”
“Mostly he said for me to stop sitting on his head. I told him I would as soon as we got to the jail, so he started going on about how if he plugged Taco Bob that him and Lenny might make the FBI’s Top Ten and maybe even get on America’s Most Wanted. He was mighty disappointed he didn’t get to shoot you.”
“I’m sure. But even though he’s a crazed criminal, I’ll bet George is a sensible man deep down. A little more prison time and he’ll probably forget all about me.”
Jones looked anxious, so Taco Bob nodded to the young man to see what he had to say.
“Well, it sure is good y’all got them Dalton’s taken care of and sprung Hazel. Now everything is going to be back to normal, right?”
Pete took it. “Not exactly. We still got us some serious monetary concerns and that Mad Possum Disease rumor to contend with.” Pete glanced at his boss with his good eye. “Hazel told us he heard some stuff while in jail. Sounds like that rumor got started by Buck Kracker.”
All eyes snapped to Pete.
“Yep. Seems Buck fired Jed Rawlings, and Jed got himself drunk and thrown in jail. Jed ended up in the next cell for a couple of days. I guess he didn’t realize Haze could hear him, and the man was a real talker, kept telling the guards all kinds of things.” Pete let that sit long enough to fire up a smoke from Mumbles.
“Haze says it sounds like there’s a lot more to Kracker than just some city slicker with money who came out here and bought a cattle ranch to play with.” The foreman blew a big lungful of smoke straight up.
Jones looked nervous again. “He ain’t something real bad like a child molester or a literary agent, is he?”
“Almost that bad. Hazel heard Jed saying Kracker used to do scams on the internet, his specialty was Russian brides. Moved from Oklahoma to Alaska to start swindling socially challenged men all across the country into thinking they were pen pals with lonely gals in Russia. He’d get them fellas to send money for airfare or visas or some such, then just stop writing. He even started some scam-alert websites to expose the competition, and at the same time make his own cons sound legit.”
A lot of heads started shaking. Living outside of town, miles from the nearest women, there wasn’t a man at the ranch who hadn’t at least thought about someday checking into the modern version of the mail-order bride.
Pete wasn’t done. “Our man Buck stayed with it and finally made so much money he got the attention of the Russian mafia, who tracked him down. He managed to give ‘em the slip, but they took over his operation.
“So then, while hiding out from the Russkies, Kracker started selling scam kits on the net, mostly to amateur crooks and phishers in foreign countries. That’s why at first most internet scams sounded a little off or had misspelled words. Then the man made a killing selling software to the same scammers that made ‘em sound like high school English teachers.”
“Mhn mm mnm?”
“Yep, he got out of that when the US government finally got off its ass and went after him. That’s when he moved from Alaska to down here in south Texas. Supposedly because of the warm weather, cheap land, and lack of Russian mafia.”
Jones stood up. “And he’s the one started the Mad Possum Disease rumor?”
“Sure sounds like it. Jed told the guard that Kracker talks big about taking over the area, and started that rumor to run the possum ranchers out of business so he could buy up their land cheap.”
Mumbles started a low growl and balled his fists. He stood and the men made way as the man whose family was known to be small in stature but big on temper stomped off toward the horse corral.
Jones looked at Taco Bob. “Where’s Mum going?”
“I reckon to go try his hand at whipping Kracker and any of his cowboys he comes across.”
“But boss, there’s some of them cowboys twice as big as Mum and almost as mean, including Buck Kracker. He’ll get himself kilt, just as sure!”
“He’ll calm down after a while.” Taco Bob looked at his watch. “In fact – ”
The ear-piercing clanging of the call to breakfast came from the back just then. Mumbles turned, put his head down, and ran hard back to the house. He was one of the first to the breakfast table.
After the initial assault on the spread of rabbit stew, biscuits, rice, and corn tortillas, Taco Bob got Mumbles calmed down. Then, in low voices, the men discussed their options.
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
24
Cowmore
Dottie thought it through before she made the call, then punched in the number.
“Buck? It’s Dottie.”
“Hey Dottie! I was just thinking about you!”
That brought a shudder. She turned away from her desk and looked out the window of her office.
“I got an e-mail yesterday inquiring about one of my listings. It’s from Cowmore International. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
There was a moment’s hesitation.
“I should’ve known a smart lady like yourself would figure that out. Yeah, I might be interested in picking up a place or two around town, you know, diversify my holdings. I made a killing in South American cattle lately. Got in early on a company buying up worthless jungle and converting it into cattle ranches.”
“You bought stock in a company that is destroying the rain forests so fast food restaurants can sell cheap hamburgers?”
“Of course not! Hey, I don’t mess around with buying stock, I’m a full partner in the company – vice-chairman of the board even. Pretty impressive, huh?”
“Buck, the destruction of the rain forests is one of the main causes of global warming.”
“Come on, you don’t believe that crap, do you? You’re not some kind of tree-hugger are you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Dottie was talking with her teeth clenched. “And a vegetarian too, in case you forgot.”
“That’s great, I always said every woman should have a hobby. You need any more steaks? I could drop by later with a big box of t-bones. Maybe we could have lunch at that new barbeque place in Armadillo and I could show you some numbers on that South American company. It a great tax shelter and a real cash cow. Get it? Cash cow?”
Dottie held the phone away from her ear and counted slowly to ten while Kracker laughed at his own joke.
“Look, Buck, if you’re interesting in real estate investments, I’ve got several listings that are a better value than that house. Not to mention the forty acres that goes with the house are too scrubby for crops or grazing, and the house is pretty big
for a rental. I can send – ”
“No, that’s the one I want.” Kracker lost his mirth. “Just fax the information to Cowmore, my lawyer will take it from there.”
“Fine. It’s just – ”
“Look, I’ll let you in on a little secret, okay? Let’s just say that maybe it’s time your fat little Mexican friend had some competition.”
“You mean the – ”
“Look, I gotta go, Doll. I’ll drop those steaks by later. Ciao.”
Dottie set the phone down. She swiveled her chair and stared at the building next door.
“He’s going to turn Doc’s place into a whorehouse?”
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
25
Inspection
The next few days were busy times for Taco Bob and the boys. Though the bottom had dropped out of the possum market, the gator market was holding up nicely. They even got a contract with a new restaurant in Armadillo. Enough money trickled in to keep the ranch going and put just a whiff of hope in the air.
Hop insisted Taco Bob stop by the state livestock inspector’s house whenever he made a delivery to the restaurant. The first time the inspector’s wife was uncertain about taking the little cup of possum surprise, but she didn’t hesitate the next time.
“My husband and I just love this! Thanks so much!”
“No problem. Glad you enjoy it. Is your husband around?”
“He’s out at that cattle ranch again, but he said to tell you he should be out to your place in a few days.”
With the money from the restaurant Taco Bob was even able to buy some better provisions for Hop’s outstanding meals.
Besides cooking, doing minor doctoring on the men, and digging a new well, Hop kept the accounts for the ranch – including the men’s back wages. Taco Bob told them he’d pay everyone in full as soon as things got right again. So the men worked harder than ever, determined to see the ranch make it – and not just for their back wages, but to show Buck Kracker that possum ranchers don’t go down easy.
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