Dead Horses

by David Knop

  Deer senses danger like Dog smells meat, so I lowered the Glock and relaxed. If the buck wasn’t nervous, I shouldn’t be. The sniper was gone. The animal sniffed at some scrub, then walked away.

  Rubber legs made climbing up the berm difficult. I hoped to get a view of a distant getaway vehicle, but nothing betrayed the killer’s exit. I called 911.

  “Officer down,” I said.

  Exhausted, I collapsed on the hillside above the truck. Through the windshield, the noon sun glittered in the red splash covering the rear cab wall, Pokoh’s body and what was left of his head. The urge to check his pulse swelled, but I suppressed it, the habit and my hope for him, pointless.

  The poor man never saw it coming.

  Neither did I. My chest emptied except for the despair every cop feels at the loss of a brother professional. I descended into self-pity.

  But I was the lucky one.

  Chapter 10

  Within fifteen minutes, the road filled with black and gold SUVs from the Southern Ute Reservation Police Department and white Fords from the Ignacio police. Eventually, the La Plata County Sheriff showed, and even the Durango PD, fifty miles distant, joined. Cruisers, SUVs, and pickups flashed red and blue. Techs in clean, white suits and light blue booties swarmed everywhere stretching yellow police tape. Only the FBI, BIA, and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were missing.

  I felt pretty useless and wanted to leave but I was the eyewitness to an unseen shot from an undetermined location and the sole survivor of an anonymous shooter. Fuck me.

  What held my attention, though, was the last thing Pokoh said, You and me gotta talk.

  You and me gotta talk was the only thing he left me with.

  The cops talked quietly in groups by skin—red, brown, or white—but the noise level increased when the subject of jurisdiction arose. The sheriff must’ve won because a deputy came over to my hillside-seat first. “You the witness?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” My head banged like ceremonial drums. The shot to Pokoh’s head brought flashbacks from my days in the Corps. My adrenaline-fueled senses readied for the next battle, unknown, unseen, but inevitable.

  The deputy sported a high-and-tight haircut under his cap, stood six feet, slight paunch despite the fact he looked like he could handle himself.

  “Deputy Frank Jones,” he said, then he asked me for identification. I handed over my Cochiti police ID. He looked at both sides, then asked, “A little out of your jurisdiction, son.”

  “I’m moonlighting on a horse-rustling case.” No need to bring up the Pecos murders right now.

  “For who?”

  I didn’t like the question or the way he said it. Why did he care? I said, “Santa Fe County Security Consulting.” My voice flat and dead.

  “You got a license to practice in Colorado?”

  “New Mexico.” Not quite true. I’d obtained one when released from active duty, but I let it lapse when I got the pueblo job.

  “You need a license to practice in Colorado.”

  “Right.”

  “What happened, here?” he asked, thumbing over his shoulder at Pokoh’s pickup.

  “I only know the ending.” I told him what I knew about the shooting. I was tempted to talk about seeing Deer, but that wasn’t going to help.

  “Don’t leave the county before checking with me, Romero.” He walked off. My face burned from the interview. If that was homicide investigation in Colorado, then this was the best state to kill someone.

  Next, it was an Ignacio police officer who approached. He asked questions. I answered. Durango PD next. He asked more questions and offered nothing new.

  I rubbed my face, sticky with the remnants of Pokoh’s life. I’d heard his last breath, was present when his spirit crossed to the other world. I should have said to hell with it and gone home. This case was much bigger than I had imagined.

  A vision of the headshot into Pokoh should have warned me off this case. Instead, it pulled me in deeper. Pokoh, a Ute, was not of my people, but our blood was one before time began. Now, the blood on my hands reunited our spirits.

  I was not unsympathetic to the others, but when two Southern Ute officers stepped up, I choked up. These guys knew Pokoh better than me and I understood what it meant to lose a comrade-in-arms.

  I asked the Ute cops if they suspected a motive. My interrogator shook his head.

  “Who had it out for Pokoh?” I asked. They exchanged glances but said nothing.

  “I’m investigating a double murder at my pueblo. I need your help.”

  “We got nothing on the wire about murders out of New Mexico. Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction, Romero?”

  So much for brothers-in-blood.

  With no further role at the crime scene, I hitched a ride to Pokoh’s office, picked up the loaner truck, then drove to a dumpy, sleepy-bear motel in Durango, mostly out of caution. I had no idea who the sniper was, and I didn’t want to glance over my shoulder the whole time I was driving around here. If he had his sights on me, he was gonna have to work to find me.

  After I checked into my room under a false name, I sat on the bed and called Palafox in Santa Fe. I told him my source of information for the horse-killer case was sniped a few hours ago.

  “Jesus, man. You okay?” Palafox asked.

  “Little shook, nothing much.” Nothing I would admit to. I told him what little I knew about the shooting.

  “I’ll work it from this end,” Palafox said. “Anything else?”

  “Before he died, Pokoh gave me a name. I’ll track him down see what I can find.”

  “What’s the name, I’ll look it up.”

  “Rafi Maestrejuan. A sheepherder. That’s all I know. Name sounds Basque.”

  Off phone, keys chattered.

  “Uh. Fortunately, he’s got an uncommon name. Yep, that’s him. From Bilbao, Spain. Here on a work visa. Wait. Yup, it expired four months, ago. Uh, otherwise no felonies, but coupla misdemeanors; DUI and bestiality with sheep.”

  “What, he screwed the victim in a car?” A church laugh bubbled up. Then I broke into uncontrolled laughter.

  Palafox cackled, tried to speak through a horselaugh. “Listen to this. The victim’s name was Dolly. In court, the perp apologized and asked for a pardon.”

  “You mean a Dolly pardon?” I barely got it out between gasps.

  Palafox dropped the phone.

  I could barely breathe, but I said, “He promise to marry Dolly?” I struggled to get the words out between heaves. I wiped my eyes and tried to calm down. “Got an address for Maestrejuan?”

  “No physical address listed. Got a sister in Climax,” he said, in between hysterical wheezing. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I can’t help it.” He paused, then spoke between deep breaths. “All I got is a PO box. Man, you made my day. Good hunting.”

  An enduring image of Pokoh’s shattered head coupled with hysterical laughter had drained the energy out of me and I collapsed on the bed.

  Rest would not come easily. My brain assembled and disassembled every last moment before Pokoh’s death. Goddammit, there was nothing to add. Nothing before the shot, not even a flash. There was life, then death. Only nothingness followed.

  As so often happens, my Marine Corps drill instructor appeared in my head. He entered over thirty years ago and never left. “You here to feel sorry for yourself, son?”

  “Sir, no sir!” I said automatically.

  “You have nothing better to do than feel sorry for yourself?”

  “Sir, no sir!”

  “Get out on the street and do what a cop does!” he said, then disappeared.

  I never questioned why or when or even how my drill instructor appeared, but I when I needed him, he showed. When he showed, I listened.

  Through the window, bands of orange clouds were suspended in deep blue skies. I somehow managed to sleep through the night as tortured as I was. Monsters and healers
paraded through my dreams and I’d fought and embraced them all. I struggled out of bed, exhausted and as stiff as wood.

  A double dose of motel coffee put my focus under control. I ate at a place across the street before following my only lead, Rafi Maestrejuan. Since Maestrejuan was a sheepherder, he would be difficult to find. Sheepherders stay close to their charges in campitos - mini trailers with no bathroom, shower, or running water. They work for peanuts for ranchers on a contract basis and could be anywhere on hundreds of thousands of mountain acres.

  I drank coffee until ten, then called the Western Range Association in Salt Lake City. I talked to the executive director who said he wouldn’t know where Maestrejuan worked, but he knew the Rocking Double Bar Ranch had been hiring. I drove to the La Plata County offices in Durango and searched for Rocking Double Bar ownership. The current owner was Freedom Calls, a Delaware corporation. The agent of record was a Donald LaBarge who, as luck would have it, lived locally.

  The LaBarge address sat on the edge of town within hearing distance of the antique Durango and Silverton Narrow Gage railroad. There, an older ranch house needing paint nestled between low, wooded hills. Assorted auto parts decorated the acreage. I parked and knocked on the door.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked a powerfully built man, dark hair, about five-ten. He looked me up and down like I just killed his favorite ram and was wearing it as a coat.

  “I’m looking for a man named Rafi Maestrejuan.”

  LaBarge, or so I figured, snorted. “Ain’t got no goddamn time for no Injun looking for no spic,” he said, slamming the door.

  “And a good day to you, sir,” I said to the door. I’m no stranger to insulting behavior and wouldn’t let that white trash ruin my day.

  On the way to my motel, I had a stroke of luck. I knew the Rocking Double Bar property was in this area. Pokoh had mentioned he found Maestrejuan in a bar and there, on the right side of the road, was a bar. A sign said The Quaking A, but from the decrepit trucks parked in front, the peeling paint and missing shingles, I wasn’t sure if the name referred to the neighboring aspens or its customers.

  Finding the sheepherder here was a long shot. I suddenly thought of Pokoh and shook the idea away.

  The Quaking A sported a single bar on one side that fronted about twenty stools. Two pool tables dominated the other side and six four-tops occupied the middle. Three high barred windows let in light that depressed more than illuminated. The place smelled like beer passed through who knows how many distressed kidneys. It was only three in the afternoon and a half-dozen men drank like they worked at it, smoked silently at the bar. I’d been kicked out of better places than this, when I used to drink.

  My order for a cola earned stink-eye from the bartender but he served up. I sipped, waited for my presence to blend in, if that was possible. I flipped my braid over my shoulder and waited. Asking questions in a joint like this where the inhabitants are hostile can end up having to dodge fists and elbows real fast. I scanned the room under my eyebrows.

  Ten minutes later, a cowboy walked in and sat two stools down. We traded glances through the back mirror. Finally, I asked, “Just bought a spread up the road and I’m wantin’ to hire some herders. Know anybody lookin’ for work?”

  The man got up, put some coins into the jukebox. My answer was an ear-splitting version of Johnny Russell’s “Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer” followed by “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks. During the third song my ears pulsed with lyrics that begin with the singer saying the Confederate stars and bars T-shirt he wore only meant he was a Skynyrd fan. The bartender and patrons glared at me. Some started to grow nasty grins. This was no sheepherder or Indian bar. I left.

  A mile out of Durango, I spotted another bar. The last pissed me off, but I had a job to do. Inside, the odor of stale beer and ammonia wafted past. All redneck dives looked the same: bar, juke, tables, pool setup, maybe a dance floor, glowing Coors and PBR signs. Nasty patrons. I backed out quickly.

  The third place was a fake alpine-style structure slumped off the road outside the city limits. I waited for an oncoming tanker truck to pass before I pulled into the gravel parking lot.

  I sat at the bar. This dump summoned bad memories: headaches, vomit, lost keys, nights away. Mad wife. I didn’t miss the life.

  Two seats away, an Indian with a hatchet nose, kept eyeing me. I nodded. He glanced at his empty glass. I turned to his reflection in the mirror. Dive bar etiquette discourages direct eye contact.

  “Lookin for Rafi Maestrejuan. Works at the Rocking Double Bar,” I said to the bartender. I badged him making sure it was too fast to read. He turned and made busy with a beer tap.

  The guy two seats away tapped his glass on the bar louder than he needed to. The barkeep turned and looked at the Indian, then me. “Beer,” I said, pointing to the man. I dropped a twenty on the bar. The bartender rolled his eyes and served up.

  The Indian lit up. I nodded. Buying a beer for a stranger was a cheap way to mine for information. In these dumps, everyone pretends to mind their own business. Truth is, everyone knows most everybody and most everything. Answers tend to flow at the same rate as the beer.

  We both said nothing, and I stared at a group of shelves holding bottles above the sink and below the mounted head of a buck that reminded me of the animal that had appeared at Pokoh’s murder. Even the mount seemed to be watching me. I mused over why Deer appeared then and what he wanted from me.

  When the bartender took a load of empties out back, I asked the Indian which baseball team he liked.

  “Fútbol,” he said in clearly pronounced Spanish, South American for sure, Peruvian to my ear. Peruvians have replaced the Basque as migrant flock-tenders throughout most of the West.

  Adhering to etiquette, we both kept our eyes on the back wall. “I hear United is doin’ all right this year,” I said in New Mexican Spanish.

  The man launched into a monologue of soccer until I was sorry I brought it up.

  When the bartender returned, the man shut up, finished his beer, and rushed out the door without so much as a nod. So much for my information-seeking tactics. My plan crashed with the slamming of the bar door.

  After finishing my cola, I stepped outside. Halfway to my truck, my bar buddy stepped out from behind the side of a bailing wire coil and a Bondo pickup and gave detailed directions to Maestrejuan’s campito.

  In Spanish, I asked why he was telling me now.

  The man shook his head. “Usted no es un policía blanco, señor.” Not a white policeman.

  The Peruvian hopped into his pickup, made three attempts at starting the truck, then drove off, trailing a cloud stinking of rotten eggs.

  Chapter 11

  The Peruvian left me scratching my head. Hate crimes against Indians anywhere are common enough. Some merchants cheat us, rednecks attack us for sport. There are even people out there who want to kill us, and some policemen don’t take crimes against us seriously. That seemed to be the case when Pokoh was shot. Maybe that’s why the Peruvian would talk only to me, an Indian.

  Thoroughly frustrated, I headed northeast on Florida Road, then south on the 234, through pine-flecked hills that surround the city of Durango. Then down to the Old Orchard Farm on the left, just like the Peruvian told me. After a few bad guesses, I found a dirt road that crossed the Florida River. The road opened to wooded country that spent more time rising or falling than staying flat. The road cut between hills and headed south, then turned left onto a track that showed promise, until it turned into a game trail of ruts, rocks and cliffs.

  Turning around required backing up on an unstable hillside. The mountainside towered on one side while the other side vanished into one-hundred-foot drop-offs. While driving ass up, I slid sideways on loose scree toward the precipice, tires spinning. My heart dropped into my stomach until the dual rear tires dug in and I stopped.

  I stepped out to check my position and discovered the passenger-sid
e outer tire kissing thin air while the inner had stopped on a rock, the only solid one on the hill. I sat down for a few minutes to calm my nerves, then dragged myself behind the wheel, moving as softly as I could despite puffing like an old man. I gently rolled the truck forward, steering a hard left until I hit safer ground. Down trail, the truck started another sideways slide towards oblivion just to re-energize my heart to beat.

  Two miles in, the hills provided a natural oval-shaped bowl a couple of miles long with a grassy, open-area perfect for grazing sheep. Far off, a flock dappled white on green under a blue sky. The campito lay a mile off to the east.

  As I drove in, it became clear the sheep were spread out. Coyote spends all day and night finding ways to grab his next meal and the flock had opened themselves to him. Sheep should be clumped and under the protection of dogs, but there were no dogs. Every herder has canine guards. A good dog would be barking by now.

  Rafi should’ve come out of the trailer when he heard my truck. I stopped and waited. Nothing moved. Close up, the white campito seemed barely bigger than the man it was supposed to bed.

  Clothes had been thrown outside of the trailer. I grabbed my Smith & Wesson from under the seat. I stepped out of the truck but stayed behind the door. “Rafi?” I asked. Not too loud, either. “Rafi Maestrejuan?” A light wind answered. A rank, pungent odor mixed with a tinge of sickening sweetness that smelled like nothing else. Death occupied the trailer.

  The smell of the dead is something I’ve never become accustomed to. Someday, somewhere, our own discarded bodies will be oozing that same awful stench. Maybe that’s why death, common and universal, is so personal. Every death is too much our own.

  Nothing signaled immediate danger, but the situation still demanded caution. Above, Buzzard drafted on-high, his wing tips splayed like fingers.

  Holding my handkerchief to my nose, I opened the trailer door. A man lay on his side on the trailer’s single bunk. The corpse’s dark skin suggested Mediterranean ancestry and that led me to believe it was Rafi’s, but I had no idea what the man had looked like when alive. He’d been shot and left for dead. Bled out fast, judging from the size of the stain on the bed and floor. The smell from the bloated body finally overpowered my senses, so I stepped away.