Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip
Page 3
“I say we stay right here till the river goes down. If that means we gotta ditch them hogs later, well, we’ll just ditch the damn things.”
Red was stunned. That was crazy talk, plain and simple. Here they’d just spent the better part of the night poaching wild pigs, popping them behind the ear with a quiet little .222, and now Billy Don was prepared to just leave them all behind.
“You know how much time I spent putting this operation together?” Red was angry, feeling unappreciated. Why, he had even bought a new set of bolt cutters for this little excursion. Earlier in the day, he’d overheard a rancher at the cafe saying he’d be spending the night in Austin—and when God lays an opportunity like that at your feet, you don’t let it pass you by. If they could just get off the damn ranch, they’d have enough pork to last a year. But now the weather had gone and made things all complicated. Red could never get a break.
The thing that made him nervous was, they didn’t know when the rancher would be back. Might be first thing in the morning. By the time the water dropped, the rancher might be waiting on the other side, wondering who in the hell was on his ranch.
Both men sat in silence, Red trying to find something decent on the radio. He was wishing his eight-track player still worked.
After a few minutes, Billy Don said, “Lord, it is raining. I mean it is really coming down.”
“I can see that, Al Roker.”
“Red, if I was ever drownt, would you give me mouth-to-mouth?”
“Jeez, you gotta be kidding.” The dumb questions this guy asked. It gave Red the heebie-jeebies, the thought of his lips anywhere near Billy Don’s cavernous mouth.
“Some kinda friend you are,” Billy Don huffed.
“Hell, Billy Don, half the time your breath smells like Vienna sausages.”
“On account of that, you’d just let me die?”
“Can you think of a better reason?” Red was tired of this conversation already. He couldn’t imagine sitting here all night. “Do me a favor, will ya? Just shine the spotlight down there and let’s get a good look. See what we’re dealing with.”
“I think that’s a fine idea,” Billy Don grumbled, rolling down his window, letting the rain gush in. “Then you’ll ree-lize what kinda fruitcake you are.”
He grabbed the spotlight, with its intense million-candlepower beam, and stuck his massive arm out the window. The light cut a swath through the rain—and the men saw that the narrow, shallow river they had crossed earlier was now a raging torrent of whitewater. The surface was littered with tree limbs and branches and other debris. Red even saw a cow carcass whiz past.
“There now, you happy?” Billy Don hollered, his face soaked with rainwater.
As Billy Don pulled the spotlight back into the window, Red saw something else floating downstream. Just a quick glimpse—but this particular item was so large it convinced Red, absolutely and without question, to stay on high ground. Billy Don was too busy glaring at Red to have seen it.
“Shine it downstream, Billy Don!”
“What?”
“Right there!”
Billy Don swung the spotlight to his right, and then he saw it, too. The object looked so odd and out of place, getting pushed along by millions of gallons of rushing water, that neither man spoke for a moment.
“Jesus, ain’t that a Ford Explorer?” Billy Don finally said with awe.
“Yep,” Red replied. “Eddie Bauer edition, if I ain’t mistaken.”
“We ran the plate,” Senior Deputy Bill Tatum said the next morning. “Owner’s name is Vance Scofield.” Behind him, a group of deputies and rescue volunteers were donning rain gear, preparing for a search. Several had brought four-wheelers, and a couple of volunteers were on horseback. Across the river, a similar crowd had gathered, awaiting instructions via handheld radio. The TV news crews hadn’t shown up yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“That’s Phil Colby’s neighbor,” Marlin replied. Scofield was a local real estate agent who owned a small ranch to the east of Colby’s place.
Tatum snapped his fingers. “I thought I knew the name. The Wallhangers Club. The big lawsuit.”
Marlin nodded as he studied the black SUV beached on the bank of the Pedernales River, half a mile down from the Mucho Loco subdivision. The Explorer was lying on its side, every window broken, the interior filled with muck and sediment.
It was ten o’clock Monday morning. Twenty minutes earlier—just as Marlin had decided that the rainfall wasn’t going to be a problem after all—he had received a phone call from the dispatcher. Vehicle in the river, John.
The bulk of the storm had moved on an hour ago, but it was raining lightly, and most of the creeks and river crossings in Blanco County were still impassable. The water was high and moving fast, though beginning to recede. The phone call to the sheriff’s department had come in from a landowner who had walked down to the river to see how high it had risen.
Tatum said, “Ernie drove the long way around to Scofield’s place, but nobody was home. From what we can gather, he lives by himself. We got hold of his father, but he wasn’t any help. Couldn’t remember when he’d seen Scofield last. About half senile, I think. No other family members.”
“The father lives alone?”
“Yeah. He’s got a nurse that checks on him. She couldn’t tell us anything, either.”
“What about Scofield’s friends?”
“We’re working on it.”
Marlin stepped over to his truck and began removing several items from the backseat of the extended cab. A rain poncho, neon orange surveyor’s tape, binoculars, a small camera. Tatum stayed with him, waiting for Marlin to form a plan. As he gathered his equipment, Marlin asked, “What’s the latest on Lucas?”
“The state fire marshal is sending a team to overhaul the house tomorrow,” Tatum said, referring to the slow, methodical removal of debris during an investigation. “But no sign of Lucas. None of his friends or family have a line on him. Nicole is pulling his phone records.”
Nicole Brooks, the new deputy, had joined the department just six weeks ago, coming from the Mason County sheriff’s office. She’d replaced Rachel Cowan, who had signed on with the Austin police department. Cowan had been an outstanding deputy, and the sheriff, Bobby Garza, had tried to convince her to stay. But Cowan had an interest in crimes involving computers and the Internet, and that sort of thing was seldom seen in Blanco County. Marlin could understand Rachel’s decision; he considered the Austin police force to be one of the finest in the nation. Cowan had called Garza just last week, excited, describing how her unit had nailed a pedophile trolling for teens online. They were all happy for her.
The good news was, Brooks had stepped right in and filled the void seamlessly. She was knowledgeable and friendly, excellent at dealing with the public, worked well with the other deputies. A great addition to the department. But there was one thing about Nicole Brooks that could have been a problem, especially among a sheriff’s staff that was largely male. She was gorgeous. In a double-take kind of way. Thick auburn hair that she wore in a braid while on patrol, curves that her khaki uniform couldn’t quite conceal. The sort of looks that made the locals crack jokes about getting speeding tickets on purpose. So far, the other deputies, to their credit, had behaved like gentlemen. Marlin had heard no improper remarks, no locker-room innuendo. It was like ignoring an elephant in the coffee room.
“So we still don’t know if he was in there or not?” Marlin asked, referring to Lucas.
“Nope.” Tatum lowered his voice. “It’s looking like arson, John. Ernie said he smelled gas real strong when he first got there. And some of the guys smelled ammonia.”
“You’re kidding me. As in anhydrous?”
“Yeah.” Tatum leaned in closer. “We’re thinking he was running a lab.”
Marlin shook his head in disgust. That damn Lucas. “Well, that’s just great.” He had more questions, but they’d have to wait. It wasn’t his case, anyway.
“I don’t guess so,” Tatum said.
“We’ll treat it as a rescue,” Marlin said quietly, “but at this point, I think we’re looking at recovery.”
Tatum nodded.
It was obvious to both men: Given the conditions, they’d likely be searching for a body rather than a survivor. But they could be wrong. Scofield could be stumbling along the banks, disoriented, or in the middle of the river, clinging to a tree.
Marlin lifted his handheld unit. “Ernie?”
“I’m here.”
Turpin was now on the other side of the river after visiting Scofield’s home.
“Here’s how we’ll tackle this thing. I want your group to split into two smaller groups. One searches upstream, one downstream. The nearest crossing is the low-water bridge into Mucho Loco, and that’s the same road to Scofield’s ranch. For the time being, well assume that’s where the SUV went in. So your upstream searchers don’t need to look any further than that. Tell everyone to work in pairs—no solo efforts. Tell ‘em to find a buddy and stick with him. If anyone sees something in the water, tell ‘em not to grab it unless they can reach it from the bank. I want everyone clear on that. Nobody is to enter the water. Just mark the spot. Are you with me?”
“Ten-four.”
Marlin continued. “We’ve got a DPS chopper coming, but it’ll be an hour or so. We don’t know how many people were in the vehicle, and we don’t know when it happened. Any questions?”
“No, we’re all set, John.”
“Let’s get after it.”
Marlin and Tatum approached the crowd on their side of the river. Marlin recognized most of the faces—chiefly lifelong county residents, but a handful of newcomers as well, each of them waiting eagerly for instructions. The crowd quieted down as Marlin and Tatum neared.
Marlin spoke loudly. “Okay, folks, here’s what we’re gonna do.”
“I suppose y’all have heard about Scofield,” Chuck Hamm said.
It was seven in the evening. He was seated behind the desk in his den, a generous glass of Crown Royal in front of him. Filling the room—some seated, some standing—were the other seven board members of the Wallhangers Club. All of the men were Blanco County residents, and they had gathered because Hamm, the club’s president, had called an emergency meeting.
“Damn shame,” Tyler Hobbs said.
Lance Longley said, “A deputy called me this afternoon, wondering if I knew where he was.”
“Me, too,” someone added.
As it turned out, all of the men had been called.
Longley had a sarcastic grin on his face. “I imagine it’s tearing you up inside, huh, Chuck?”
Some of the men laughed softly
Hamm smirked and said, “Yeah, Lance, it’s breaking my heart.”
More quiet chuckles.
“Okay,” Hamm said, “we’ll say a prayer for Vance and all that crap, but that’s not why we’re here. Herzog came to see me yesterday, and it looks like we’ve got a little problem.” As he began his tale, he studied the faces of the men around him. Like most of them, Chuck Hamm had come by his Hill Country ranch the old-fashioned way: He had inherited it. His great-grandfather had purchased the ranch at the turn of the twentieth century, and now Chuck Hamm was the fourth generation to steward the rolling land in eastern Blanco County.
Much as it had been a hundred years ago, the two-thousand-acre Hamm Ranch was still dotted with thick copses of oak and elm, prickly pear, sycamore, and cottonwood. The clear water of Yeager Creek still ran as cold and pristine as the day Chuck’s daddy was baptized in it as a boy.
But one thing had changed dramatically
Whereas the three Hamm men before him had managed a comfortable lifestyle by raising cattle, Chuck Hamm had found that that particular well had run dry in the past decade. With the price of beef nowadays, the profits were simply no longer there. No matter how many backbreaking hours he put in each day, it was a losing battle. So, in the early nineties, Hamm came to a conclusion many of his ranching brethren had already reached.
He could make a hell of a lot more money off white-tailed deer than cattle.
Deer hunting was a two-billion-dollar-a-year industry in Texas. Hunters bought rifles and ammo, camouflage clothing, blinds and feeders, boots and knives. They built hunting cabins and financed shiny new trucks to get there. And—the most important thing, the part that interested Hamm—the hunters were willing to plunk down thousands of dollars in hard-earned cash for a shot at a trophy deer.
Hamm, despite his rural upbringing, hadn’t done much deer hunting. Never had the time for such things. But he had plenty of friends who hunted, and they were quick to fill him in on the basics. One of the first things they told him was, there are two types of deer hunting in Texas: behind a “low” fence made of regular barbwire, or behind a “high” fence, meaning a game-proof eight-footer.
Now, the low-fenced properties, they said, those are for your average Joe, a guy looking for some affordable hunting. Place like that might have some big deer on it, and then again it might not. You take your chances. The place might’ve been overhunted in years past, or it might be that the neighbors blast away at every buck they ever see, leaving you with slim pickings. There’s just no way to know for sure.
Then you got your high-fenced places, they told him. And that’s where you’re more likely to find yourself a trophy deer. With a high fence, Hamm learned, a rancher can carefully control the deer herd; he can practice “game management,” which was a big buzzword in the hunting world. The term implied a lot of things, but chiefly it meant the landowner could contain “his” deer within the fence while keeping other deer out. That way, the rancher could cull the bucks with lesser antlers and let the larger trophy bucks do all the breeding. As the years progressed behind a high fence, if you worked things right, you just naturally wound up with bigger, better deer. His friends assured him: When a high-fenced buck reaches maturity—with a big ol’ rack of antlers sprouting from its head—there were hot-blooded hunters all across the state who couldn’t wait to get a crack at it. For an enormous price.
Long story short, boy, were those guys right. After hearing all the facts, Hamm decided that high fencing was the way to go. First, though, he had to grin and bear the high price. At two dollars per linear foot, and nearly four miles of exterior fence line around Hamm’s ranch, it was a hell of an expense. But it was an investment that eventually paid off handsomely. Whereas a low-fenced ranch in the area might bring a thousand dollars per hunter for an entire season, Hamm’s high fence allowed him to command anywhere from two to five grand (and sometimes more, depending on the size of the deer taken) from a hunter who might be on the property for a single weekend.
In the end, no matter how you looked at it, it was deer hunting, not ranching, that had made Hamm a reasonably wealthy man. Sure, Hamm still ran cattle, but whitetails were the cash crop.
For obvious reasons, then, Chuck Hamm was an enthusiastic proponent of high fences, as were the board members of the Wallhangers Club, a hunting organization formed by Hamm ten years earlier. Each and every board member was in a position similar to Hamm’s, meaning they all made a small fortune off deer hunting. Each of them had a stake in the future of property rights in Texas, and those rights included putting up a fence however high the landowner damn well wanted.
Now, as Hamm described his meeting with Herzog, the room was beginning to buzz. These men were sharp; they knew something bad was coming. Hamm simply laid it all out for them—Herzog’s entire sordid tale, ending with the photographs.
Jaws dropped. Faces contorted in disbelief. Heads shook in amazement. Groans were heard all around.
Hamm set his glass of Crown Royal down and raised his hands for a
bsolute silence. When everyone had grown quiet and Hamm was certain the news would be received with the gravity it deserved, he spoke again. “What the blackmailing sumbitch wants,” he said through clenched teeth, “is a goddamn law against high fences.”
4
FOR A MOMENT, nobody spoke. They were all too shocked. Then Lance Longley muttered, “You gotta be kidding,” voicing the thought on each man’s mind.
Other comments simultaneously filled the air.
“The guy’s lost his mind.”
“Not that horseshit again.”
“I’m not believin’ this.”
Hamm let the babble run for a minute; then he raised his hand again. “Now, understandably, our boy in Austin is a little upset by this nasty bidness. And I can’t blame him for that. But the question is, should we help him out?”
Seventy-year-old Dexter Ashby, seated in front of Hamm’s desk, said, “What, there’s an option?”
“The way I see it, yeah, there is.”
He took a long pull of Crown Royal as everyone waited.
Then he said, “I know this sounds a little cruel, maybe a little risky…but we could always just let him deal with it.” Hamm paused as everyone pondered that possibility He knew there would be discussion and debate, and when it was over, he could steer them in the direction he really wanted them to go. He knew he shouldn’t start out with a plan as abrupt as the one he was going to suggest.
“Let the photos come out?” someone asked.
“I don’t see why not. These types of things seem to be losing their shock value. It’ll be big news for a day or two, then it’ll pass. Chrissakes, even that blow-job queen in the White House is ancient history. And Herzog, hell, he’s nothing but a state senator. Low profile. Trust me, he could get through it no problem.”
“But hold on a sec,” Tyler Hobbs, one of the younger men, said. “What exactly is in these photos? You said Herzog’s been fooling around on his wife, but don’t you think we need to know exactly what we’re talking about here?”