Blanco County 03 - Flat Crazy

by Rehder, Ben

  Billy Don was sitting in a nearby lawn chair, drinking a tallboy. Red, still intoxicated, couldn’t resist taking another stab at the huge redneck. “Just had to pick that particular Meskin, didn’t ya?” he muttered for about the tenth time.

  Billy Don glared at him. “Don’t get crossways with me, Red. Let it lie.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Red said, wanting to get the last word in, “we’re gonna need to come up with some cash pretty soon. The bills are piling up. Plus, you still owe me rent.” Billy Don had moved into Red’s trailer the previous fall.

  “Yeah, but you said you’d just take the rent out of the money I’d earn from your great new masonry company. Remember?”

  Red was quiet for a moment. In fact, he did remember saying that. He just didn’t think Billy Don would remember it. “Well, like I said, if you hadn’t gotten us a suicidal wetback with the runs—”

  Billy Don growled and crumpled the beer can against the side of his skull.

  Red decided to let the topic drop.

  5

  BARRY GRUBBMAN, AN assistant producer for Hard News Tonight, came into work early on Monday morning because he had a lot hanging over his head. He needed a good scoop, and he needed it bad. Something big and wild and juicy enough to get him back into his boss’s good graces.

  Last Friday, Chad Reeves, the show’s arrogant executive producer, had made it clear that Barry’s job was on the line. No, Chad hadn’t come right out and said it, but Barry wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t need it spelled out for him.

  Barry had pitched some segment ideas, but Chad had not been receptive whatsoever.

  “I got a stringer with footage of Madonna sunbathing topless, rubbing oil on her … uh … herself,” Barry had offered.

  “Bor-ring,” Chad replied in that annoying singsong voice of his. It was something he did when he wanted to be condescending.

  Barry clumsily thumbed through some notes.

  “A woman who claims to be the Pope’s illegitimate daughter?”

  Chad sighed heavily.

  “How about a hiker in Michigan who got lost and ate his own dog?”

  “Move along.”

  “Rap star Heavy Dogg Joe arrested during a drug bust?”

  Chad shook his head.

  “But … the guy was dressed in drag.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  Barry was starting to get discouraged. “A blind lesbian in Georgia who became the surrogate mother for her brother’s quadriplegic wife?”

  Chad drummed his fingers on his desk.

  Dejected, Barry said, “That’s all I’ve got right now.”

  Chad leaned forward and made eye contact with Barry. It was somehow unsettling, the sense of intimacy too great. Barry struggled to maintain eye contact but failed. Chad spoke softly: “Let me ask you something, Barry. Let’s say you just got home from a long day at work. You’ve been selling shoes or teaching first graders, or whatever the fuck you’ve been doing. Now you’re tired, you’ve got a glass of booze in your hand, and you’re looking for a little entertainment. Do any of those stories sound even mildly entertaining to you?”

  The truth was, Barry thought they did. Madonna’s hooters? Let me at ’em! A man who barbecued his own yellow Lab? Hell yeah!

  “No, I guess they don’t,” Barry said quietly.

  Chad rose from his chair and began to pace, a signal to Barry that a lecture was coming. “You know how I got my big break in this business, Barry?”

  Oh God. Not this one again.

  “I was on a flight from L.A. to New York—riding first-class, naturally—and as luck would have it, Jessica Hyatt was sitting right next to me.”

  Jessica Hyatt had achieved worldwide fame in the early nineties as a hip-swiveling, midriff-baring pop superstar before she drove her Ferrari into a tree at eighty miles per hour. She had been affectionately known to her fans as J Hi. Her death had made her an instant legend.

  “Now, riding next to J Hi wasn’t news in itself, of course,” Chad said. “But as we reached cruising altitude and she began moaning and clutching her chest, I knew something was wrong. When it became apparent that her new breast implants had exploded, I knew I was onto a huge story. As soon as we landed, I got on my cell phone, made a few calls, and the rest is history.”

  There was a long pause, and Barry knew from experience that if he tried to say something, Chad would immediately interrupt him.

  Barry said, “So you—”

  “My point is,” Chad said, “you have to have a nose for this business. You have to be able to spot the big story and react instantly. Not everyone has that gift. No, I’m afraid that sort of intuition is reserved for just a precious few.”

  Long pause.

  Barry said, “And what—”

  “I want you to do something for me, Barry. This weekend, I want you to take a long hard look at yourself … and decide whether this is the career for you. Figure out whether you have that special gift or not. Will you do that for me?”

  Another pause. Barry wasn’t sure if he was really supposed to answer.

  He said, “Well, if you think—”

  “That’s my boy!” Chad placed a hand on Barry’s shoulder, steering him toward the door.

  That meeting had taken place last week. Now it was Monday, and Barry had to come up with some killer ideas fast.

  He turned to the Internet, expecting to slog from one useless site to another. But as it turned out, he found something that caught his eye in about five minutes.

  “Got a call this morning—maybe something you can help out with,” Bobby Garza said.

  John Marlin was sitting across from him at Ronnie’s Ice House & Barbecue in Johnson City. Marlin was waiting on a sliced beef sandwich, Garza for a rib plate. The rich aromas in the large one-room restaurant always made Marlin’s mouth water before his meal even arrived.

  “What’s up?”

  “Well, about a half hour ago, we got a call from a woman in Houston. Said her husband had come out this way yesterday to talk to a hunting guide. He was supposed to be home last night, but he never showed.”

  “Which guide?” Marlin knew most of them.

  “That’s the problem. The woman was practically useless. Didn’t know the guide’s name, the name of the ranch, or even what part of the county her husband was hunting in. The one thing she did know was that he had hunted with the guide a few weeks ago. I asked her to check with her bank, see if there were any checks made out to names she didn’t recognize. In the meantime, I told her we’d keep an eye out, and she could file a missing person report tomorrow if she wanted.”

  “Probably nothing,” Marlin said. During deer season, it wasn’t uncommon to receive a call like that, a frantic wife wondering where her husband had disappeared to. Usually, the hunter had decided to stay an extra day and either forgot to call or couldn’t get good cell phone service where he was hunting.

  “Anyway,” Garza said, “the guy’s name is Oliver Searcy. Drives a blue Ford truck, couple years old. Keep an eye out, will ya?”

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll be checking some camps this afternoon. I’ll ask around.”

  Garza noticed Ronnie placing their orders on the counter, so he hopped up to get them while Marlin refilled their iced tea glasses.

  Marlin tore into his sandwich, which was loaded with plenty of barbecue sauce. Pure heaven. On Wednesdays, Ronnie served a legendary hamburger made from three-quarters of a pound of meat—way more than Marlin could comfortably handle.

  As Garza was gnawing on a rib, he said, “Also got a call from Trey Sweeney this morning.”

  “Oh yeah?” Marlin hadn’t talked to Trey since yesterday on Flat Creek Road. “What’s Trey up to?”

  “He’s decided he’s going to pen a few goats and set up one of those automatic cameras.”

  In the past five years, motion-triggered cameras had become all the rage among hunters. You simply aimed the camera at your feeder or a trail, and anything that passed by was pho
tographed. Great for scouting.

  Marlin shook his head and grinned. “Man, once he gets his mind set on something…”

  “Tell me about it. Like a dog with a bone.”

  Marlin had seen the Blanco County Record that morning. Right there on the front page was the article:

  CHUPACABRA REPORTED IN BLANCO COUNTY

  Undocumented Immigrant Struck By Truck in Bizarre Mishap

  Fortunately, Susannah Branson hadn’t taken the chupacabra angle too seriously. Marlin figured the buzz would die off quickly and that would be the end of it.

  The lone coyote was white at the muzzle, old and lean, and not as fast as he used to be. He had had little success hunting for three straight days, and hunger was ravaging his insides. It ruled his existence and propelled him endlessly forward. He had found the remnants of a deer earlier in the day, but the carcass had offered little, the entrails long gone, the bones picked clean by scavengers that had been there in the preceding days.

  Later, he was navigating a familiar hunting trail, the moon providing light by which to stalk, when he encountered the scent of the man. At first, his instincts—finely honed by untold generations of his forebears—told him to retreat. The coyote’s brain equated man with death, and rightly so.

  But he lingered. This scent was different, somehow enticing. This man was no longer a threat.

  He crept through the cedar trees, moving upwind, his senses on full alert, prepared to flee at the slightest provocation. Moments later, his eyes, still sharp, spotted the source of the scent, a shapeless bulk sprawled on the ground.

  The coyote lowered his belly to the dirt, the tall grass providing cover. For a full two hours, he lay in waiting, scanning the surrounding woods for signs of danger. There was no movement, and no other animals happened by.

  Finally, when he could stand it no longer, the coyote moved forward, wary and watchful. The smell was overpowering, though, and he began to salivate.

  In the middle of the night, a twelve-year-old boy named Charlie Riggs woke when his dogs began whimpering in the kennel outside his window. The dogs whined, but they knew better than to bark—because when they barked, Charlie’s stepdad would go outside and kick them. Especially if he was drunk. Charlie hated when that happened. It scared him, and he knew it made his mother sad.

  After a few minutes, the dogs were quiet again, and Charlie hoped they’d go back to sleep. It was probably nothing but a raccoon or possum that had wandered too close. But just as Charlie was drifting off again, the dogs began to whimper more loudly than before.

  Charlie looked at the clock radio on his nightstand and saw that it was nearly 4:00 A.M. His stepdad would likely be in bed by now and wouldn’t be able to hear the dogs. As long as they don’t bark, Charlie thought. Please don’t bark.

  But Scout gave in. First, Charlie could hear her growling; then she let loose with a high-pitched yap.

  Charlie pulled the covers back and stepped into his slippers. He made his way down the darkened hallway and was relieved to see that the door to his parents’ bedroom was closed, no light showing through the space at the floor. He went through the kitchen to the back door, grabbing the flashlight off the counter as he walked outside.

  He turned the corner of the house and approached the kennel. The dogs were quiet now, wagging their tails with excitement.

  He opened the gate and stepped into the kennel, the dogs immediately nuzzling his hands and rubbing against his legs. Scout was the dominant one of the pair, a six-year-old female spaniel. Ace, a three-year-old pointer, was male, but submissive. Charlie knelt and petted each dog, calming them. They were warm and soft, and Charlie never felt more loved than when he was with his dogs.

  He sat and leaned with his back against the chain link of the kennel. Ace stretched out on one side of Charlie, resting his muzzle on the boy’s thigh. But Scout stood with her nose to the fencing, staring into the darkness, whimpering softly.

  “What is it, girl?” Charlie asked. “Possum?”

  The dog whined for a while, but finally she settled down and lay on Charlie’s other side.

  Charlie stayed in the kennel, dozing on occasion, until he began to see the glow of the sun in the east.

  6

  TUESDAY MORNING, JOHN Marlin woke before sunrise to a warm tongue scraping like sandpaper across his cheek. He turned his head and tried to ignore it, but that didn’t stop the young dog from climbing across his head to get to the other side, planting a paw squarely on Marlin’s ear as it went.

  The licking continued.

  Marlin covered his face with a pillow, but in a matter of seconds, the determined pup burrowed underneath and continued the assault.

  “Okay, you win,” Marlin muttered, raising up on his elbows. The gangly pup knelt on her front paws, butt in the air, and yapped. This was her I-want-to-go-outside bark, and Marlin had become intimately familiar with it. In fact, his alarm clock was quickly becoming obsolete.

  Marlin pulled the covers back and the dog leapt to the floor, excited now, dashing back and forth, barely able to contain herself.

  Her name was Geist and she was a seven-month-old foundling. The previous July, Marlin had discovered her whimpering in the darkness, dehydrated, hopelessly lost in the middle of a large ranch. Marlin had saved the pup’s life—that’s what the vet had told him later.

  But looking back on it now, considering everything that had been happening in his life the past summer, Marlin liked to think it was Geist who had come along at just the right time.

  Two hours later, Marlin was driving down A. Robinson Road when he passed the gate to the Shorthorn Ranch. Maggie Mason, the owner, lived in Dallas and made it to the ranch about twice a year at most. She was a widow and had inherited the ranch from her deceased husband’s side of the family. Maggie was not particularly fond of hunting, and she usually called Marlin at the beginning of each deer season, asking him to keep an eye on the place. They both knew poachers would be tempted to trespass in Maggie’s absence. That’s why there shouldn’t have been tire tracks going into the ranch. And yet there they were, fresh in the mud from Saturday’s light rain.

  Marlin reversed, then swung up to the gate. Even before he climbed out of his truck, he could see that the chain was hanging loose and the lock was gone.

  Duke Waldrip needed to talk to Kyle about the animal situation, so he drove over to the Macho Bueno Ranch, sorting things out in his head along the way.

  This was the second animal they’d lost—but the first one, Duke had to admit, had been his own fault. Hadn’t used enough tranquilizer on a jackal. When Gus hauled old man Raines over to shoot it, the damn thing was nowhere to be found. Hadn’t seen it since. Coyotes probably got it. Duke had fixed the problem the next time around, dosing the second jackal with enough drugs to keep it from wandering. Duke had been lucky to find another one so quickly. But this new escapee would be much harder to replace, Duke knew.

  Oddly, Duke felt remarkably calm about the Oliver Searcy fuckup. There hadn’t even been anything on the news yet. And once there was, as long as he and Gus kept quiet, nobody would ever know Duke had guided Searcy on a hunt. Chances were good that Kyle didn’t even know Searcy had set foot on the ranch. Duke couldn’t remember specifically mentioning Searcy’s name to Kyle, but if he had, it was doubtful Kyle would remember, being half blitzed most of the time. Kyle didn’t seem to care who Duke brought out to the ranch, as long as Duke kept feeding him some of the profits. Like he really needed the money.

  Kyle’s daddy had been a big-time oilman, a millionaire before he turned thirty. When the old man died three years ago, Kyle was the sole heir to the fortune. Had to be something like twenty million bucks, according to the newspapers. Since then, Kyle had lived a life of fast women, fast cars, and expensive drugs. In other words, nothing had changed at all. Kyle had always driven in the fast lane, and there were times when Duke went along for the ride.

  Like nine years ago. They were riding in Kyle’s Lotus outside Houston, and Ky
le had decided they should rob a liquor store. Just for kicks. “Hell, let’s try something new,” Kyle had said, high as a kite. If Duke hadn’t been so drunk, he never would have done it. Or if Kyle hadn’t bet him ten grand he didn’t have the balls. So Duke went in alone, ended up shooting the slant-eyed clerk in the leg, and the whole scene was captured on video. It didn’t take long for the cops to come calling, and for Duke to end up in Huntsville for four years. Shit, it could have been longer, if it wasn’t for the overcrowded Texas prison system. Sure, Kyle had paid for Duke’s lawyer, and he had even given Duke twenty grand in cash to keep his name out of it. But now Duke was an ex-con with a violent crime on his record.

  That’s what made the Searcy situation so dicey. Even if he managed to skate on the killing, the game violations and the fraud were enough to send him back to the joint.

  Besides, who would believe that Duke had killed Searcy in self-defense? The grand jury would string him up like a piñata and hand the district attorney a cane. And even if Duke had claimed self-defense and called the cops, they would have dug into his business and eventually nailed him for the hunting scams.

  Okay then, Duke felt like he had done the right thing. He knew he’d probably have to answer some tough questions at some point, but he was prepared for that. With a little coaching, Gus would be, too.

  One other loose end nagged at Duke’s insides. What about Searcy’s trophy mount? It had Duke’s fingerprints all over it, inside and out. Should he try to find out where Searcy lived and go get it back? Duke figured that was probably overkill, at least for the moment. Hell, the heat wasn’t even on yet. No sense in putting himself at risk if he didn’t have to.