by David Pierce
'What kind of sheep is that, Mom?' the inevitable fat kid loudly asked his mother, which raised a hearty laugh from all but me. Then I went inside and told Olivia she could start the sheep drive anytime.
She looked out the door to check that the corral gate hadn't been unlatched by some fun-loving visitor, then let all the animals except for Woolly and child out of their stalls, then shooed them outside. She went back for Elmer and began to bottle feed him or her or it, letting the youngest of the children take turns helping her.
Inside, I checked every inch of the floor except for the llama stall and found exactly what I had found outside – nothing but hoofprints, straw, and sheep and goat and llama shit. No blood, no bullet holes, no spent cartridge cases, no nothin'. I was not, of course, and more than likely never will be, the last of the Mohicans, but I doubt that even he could have found anything useful, such as traceable footprints, in that lot.
So now what, kemo sabe?
I went back outside, climbed the rail fence as unobtrusively as possible, and meandered down the path that ran alongside the perimeter six-foot wall – no footprints there either as the path was flagstoned. Neither were there any tufts of wool caught on handy bushes or empty mint jelly jars.
Some twenty yards along I came to a gate where a paved service road entered the park just past the dolphinarium; the gate was locked but could be unlatched from the inside without a key. So what, some may say. Outside, the service road ran off in both directions and obviously circled the whole park area. So what again.
Across the road was a two-strand barbed-wire fence and immediately beyond that there began a hardy but stunted collection of junipers, pines and assorted other Christmas trees covering the side of a low hill. And beyond the low hill was a higher hill and beyond that a still higher one and beyond that, gray sky and dragon country. A sign nailed on one of the fence posts informed me that I was facing State of California Forestry Department land and that all access was forbidden.
I sighed, as there didn't seem to be a lot else to do at the time. I brushed some sheep shit off my tan corduroys. Then I chucked a rock at a tree trunk to see if I would ever be able to pitch in the majors again, but I missed it by a mile. I wondered if anyone had ever successfully sued a llama. Then I went back inside.
I found Olivia doing something so unpleasant to one of the sheep – a Jacob, as a matter of fact – that I'll spare you the details. I told her that I'd had an idea of sorts, and that I'd be in touch, then headed back towards the car park. I passed the Monster on the way, which looked every bit as unpleasant as I'd imagined, also the poor thespian, who was standing in his shirtsleeves looking extremely unhappy right in front of a sign that read, 'Ye Olde Bear Pit'.
I didn't see a merry-go-round. I wonder whatever happened to them. I had my first kiss on a merry-go-round, my first real kiss. I was seven at the time and still wearing breeches. She was older than me, I remember, but I can't remember her name. Men can be such brutes.
CHAPTER THREE
I didn't bother stopping off at the office on the way home but did remember to pick up Mom's drycleaning. Home at that time was the upper half of a duplex on Windsor Castle Terrace, just after the freeway overpass; it was your standard Valley two-bedroom apartment with dimpled cottage-cheese ceilings, white walls, white floor-length curtains, and, in our case, new brown wall-to-wall carpeting which Mom was busily vacuuming when I entered.
'Damn things,' she said crossly. 'All they do is shed.'
'So do llamas,' I said, giving her a pat on the head. My mom is a short, still pretty woman, seventy-one last November. I hung her cleaning – two trouser suits, one canary yellow, the other a wine color – in her cupboard, got myself a Corona from the icebox, sat down on the sofa near the phone, got up again to get the telephone book from the little table near the door, and began looking up state governmental departments. After a minute Mom kicked off the machine and wheeled it out to the kitchen. She came back in and perched on the arm of the sofa beside me.
'Working?' she asked me, reaching up to do something to what was left of my hair.
'Urn hum.' I found the number I was looking for and dialed it. While it was ringing, my mom asked me again,
'Working?'
I said, 'Um-hum,' again but there must have been something in the way I said it or in my expression when I said it despite my best efforts because Mom immediately got up and took a few angry steps around the room.
'Now, now,' I said.
'Oh, shoot,' she said. 'Did I already ask you?'
'Um-hum,' I said. I got a recorded voice on the line that asked me not to hang up, my call would be answered as soon as a member of the staff was available.
'How many times?' Mom asked.
I held up two fingers. My mother had Alzheimer's disease, one of the symptoms of which is a frequent loss of memory. More often than not she laughed it off when she realized she'd asked the same question over and over because she'd forgotten she'd asked it in the first place, but occasionally she got miffed. Occasionally she cried.
'Forestry, Ms Hanson,' a girl's voice said in my ear. 'Can I help you?'
'I hope so,' I said. 'My name is Victor Daniel, and I would like to know how I find out who is in charge of a particular piece of forestry land.'
'If it is part of a National Forest,' Ms Hanson said, 'you want the Forest Service, which is under the Agriculture Department.'
'The sign said it was state owned,' I said. 'In that case,' she said, 'try me.'
'Ms Hanson,' I said, 'who is in charge of, or looks after, or caretakes, the forestry land that abuts the north side of Wonderland Park, which is about twenty-eight miles north-east of LA?'
'We do,' she said. 'In conjunction with the Sheriff's Department.'
'Ms Hanson, is there somewhere a particular person, or team, that knows that area, that actually patrols it or maintains a fire watch?'
'Sure,' she said. 'That would be out of Parson's Crossing.'
'Ah,' I said. 'And where would Parson's Crossing be, I wonder.'
She told me; I'd passed within a few miles of it twice that day, going and coming from Wonderland Park.
I thanked Ms Hanson for her help, and hung up.
'Mom, where's your beeper?' I said. Actually, I knew where it was, it was on the cocktail table in front of me, right beside the ring my cold beer was making.
'So I took it off to vacuum, big deal,' my mother said, pinning it back on her sweater. What the beeper did, when activated, was alert our downstairs neighbor and landlady, Phoebe ('Call me Feeb') that Mom needed help.
I got up and stretched, then started getting back into my windbreaker.
'Want some late lunch before you go?'
'Nah,' I said. 'I'il pick up something on the way.'
'Hot dogs,' said Mom, making a face, although she liked them as much as I did. I bent over and kissed her cheek; it was a long way down because, as I mentioned, Mom was short, about five foot two, and I was extremely large, being six foot seven and a fourth. Where the height came from, no one knew, as Pop had only been a few inches taller than Mom and none of my grandparents even close to six feet. And my brother Tony, who ran the records section for the Central Division of the LAPD, wouldn't even have been allowed to enter Mr Big, which, if you don't know, is a chain of West Coast clothing stores whose smallest size is a 42-long.
'Black is beautiful,' said some black. 'Brown is cute,' said Lee Trevino. And big is a bloody nuisance sometimes, say I, especially when you're fourteen and the band is playing a slow foxtrot and the girl you want to dance with only comes up to your belt.
Anyway. Soon I was heading north again up the San Fernando Valley, putting along comfortably in the inside lane with the Sunday drivers and old maids. On the radio, Kenny Rogers was telling me that you gotta know when to hold them and when to fold them. I told Kenny I already knew, but I was lying. I was for some inexplicable reason as bad a poker player as that anecdotal dog who played a steady game but had one major fault – e
very time he got a decent hand he wagged his tail.
I turned off the freeway where the sign told me to and some ten minutes later found Parson's Crossing right where it was supposed to be, not that there was a lot of it to find. It was one of those towns that are so small the signs that read 'You are now entering' and 'You are now leaving' were both on the same post. There was a crossroads and a general store with a gas pump out front selling a kind of gas you've never heard of and a dinette beside it and a house or two and a scrapyard and a combination Farmer's Insurance and John Deere agency with a horse in a small paddock out back. There was also a low, cinderblock building with an American flag flying from a mast out front. I deduced without too much brain work that must be the place so I pulled in and parked beside a dusty Jeep Wagoneer that was painted in the official state colors of green and white.
When I got out of my foolish car and stretched, it was so quiet I could hear the horse next door laughing to itself. I went up the two wide steps and in through the front door and explained my needs to a uniformed gent who was holding down the front desk and doubling as the switchboard operator.
'You'll be wanting Ricky,' he said, glancing up at an old-fashioned wall clock. 'He's usually back by four.' It was then right on three thirty. 'You're welcome to park yourself on that bench over there or you could take yourself over to Mae's for a piece of her famous pecan pie.'
'Mae's famous homemade pecan pie, eh?' I said, smacking my lips. 'Sounds mighty tasty.'
'Well, it ain't,' the man said. 'It ain't homemade, neither. And her coffee's terrible, too. I oughta know, I'm married to her.'
He was right, her coffee was terrible, I could hardly finish the second cup. I was paying the bill when another Wagoneer went by the dinette and turned in at the flag. I strolled back over and said to the gent at the desk, 'Was that Ricky?'
'Looked like him to me,' he said, pointing behind him. 'Second on your left.' I went down the hall, passed one office and knocked on the door of the second. A typed card informed me that it was the office of Ranger Enrique Castillo.
'It's not locked,' said a voice from within. I figured that meant I was to enter, so I did. Ricky was sitting at an aluminum desk making notes in pencil on a large map.
'Hi. Be right with you,' he said, so I sat in the metal chair facing him and folded my hands politely on my lap. Ricky was a dark-haired, dark-skinned Latin with a thin, handsome face and tired brown eyes. Young thirties. Zapata mustache. He was wearing a light green shirt, dark green jodhpurs and boots. A forest ranger's parka and cap were on a coatrack behind him. The walls were bare except for several drawings of birds done in colored pencil.
After a minute he expertly folded up the map without having to refold any of it, a skill I have never been able to master, and put it away in a cardboard file that the map had been covering. Then he put the file away in a green cabinet, then he smiled at me and offered me a Camel.
When I declined, he lit up with a box match. After blowing the match out he waited for a minute, felt the tip to see that it had cooled, then put the match back in the box the other way round.
'And what can I do for you, sir?' he then asked me.
I took out my investigator's license and passed it over. He looked at it curiously.
'Never seen one of these before, Mr Daniel,' he said. He turned it over to examine the back, which was blank, then he handed it across to me again.
Another ranger, a young, good-looking fellow, wearing the same sort of uniform as Ricky, poked his head in the door. He had a carton under one arm.
'Sorry, amigo,' he said. 'Didn't know you were busy.'
'Nada,' said Ricky. 'Mr Daniel, Ranger Thomas L.L. DeMarco, known to all as Tommy.'
'A pleasure, sir,' said Ranger DeMarco, giving me a nice smile. 'Hey, amigo, look at what I got from the folks, I got your hothouse corn, I got your fresh garden tomatoes, I got your avocados, and I got your fresh smoked ham. All for you. I already kept more than I can use.'
'Hey, amigo,' said Ricky. 'Many thanks from the whole Castillo clan.' Tommy waved and disappeared.
'So where do all those goodies come from?' I asked.
'His folks have got a farm up north,' Ricky said. 'Outside Modesto somewhere, and his mother worries he's not eating properly. Now. What brought you out here to these tranquil parts, Mr Daniel?' he asked.
'Corderos, Señor Castillo,' I said in my high-school Spanish. Actually, 'cordero' is the word for lamb, not sheep, but I didn't know the word for sheep. Señor Castillo's tired brown eyes went suddenly untired, then wary, then blank.
'Lambs? What lambs? Are you sure you've come to the right department, Mr Daniel?'
Well I wasn't positive but I was sure surer than I'd been a few minutes ago.
'I believe so,' I told him, 'if you can confirm that you are the person in charge of that tract of state forestry land that runs up against Wonderland Park.'
'I am one of them,' he said carefully. 'Tommy's the other.'
'How large an area is it?'
He shrugged. 'Medium. About twenty thousand acres.' I nodded as if I knew how big an acre was. Well, who does?
'May I ask how familiar you are with the area, or at least your part of it?'
'Very,' he said shortly, 'if you're talking about the southern half – the part nearest Wonderland Park. I wouldn't say I knew every tree but I damn near do. Now it's your turn.'
I couldn't see any reason not to tell Ricky everything, so I did. I told him of my call from Olivia, the visit to Wonderland Park, and that I had come to the conclusion after examining the scene of the crimes that someone had gone in from outside, probably over the outer fence, probably at night and probably on foot. The service road that circled the park connected with the main road into the park inside the main entrance, which was firmly locked at night. And, according to Olivia, you could rule out anybody trying to get away with five sheep during the day. So, I told Señor Castillo, who was looking more and more worried for some reason, that it seemed the only place the thief could have gone with the corderos was into forestry land, like I said, on foot.
He thought for a minute, then he said, 'Would it not have been possible for someone to have parked a car or truck outside the front gate and to have left that way?'
'Remotely possible,' I said, watching him go through his match routine again after lighting up another cigarette. 'But how would he get the corderos to the car or truck? He'd have to lug them one at a time either through the park or around the service road, then chuck them over the front gate somehow. Doesn't sound likely to me. Then, of course, there's the question, why? Who knows, maybe the bears out there got 'em but I always thought bears, except for those white ones, were vegetarians. Nuts. Wild onions. Honey.'
'You thought correctly,' Ricky said. 'At least as far as the bears go. Anything else?'
'Not a lot,' I said. 'You tell me you know the area just north of the park very well. OK. I think someone's hiding out there. I think he pops in to the park once in a while and helps himself to selected items from something called Ye Cat 'n' Fiddle and who knows where else. Maybe he gets tired of squirrel stew. Maybe he likes to talk to the animals. Why he's started stealing corderos, God knows. Maybe he's been there so long sheep are starting to look good to him. Maybe he's an Australian sheep herder who's lonely. Maybe he wants to be caught, doing something as obvious as that.'
'Say that again?' Ricky made a grimace of pain.
'Maybe he wants to be caught. You know, like a cry for help.'
'Oh, shit,' said Señor Castillo. 'Shit, shit, shit.' He got up and looked out the window. What the hell, I looked out of it too. I don't know what he saw but from where I was sitting all I could make out were some trees, some fields, and some low hills in the distance. And the odd strato-cumulus or two.
'Oh, shit,' he said again. 'It's probably Chico.'
'Who's Chico?' I asked him.
'My wife's kid brother,' he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was later that noch
e.
I was sitting in the Castillos' kitchen eating seconds of some Nicaraguan specialty that Ricky's wife Ellena had piled on my plate over my weak objections. It was dark, meaty, and sizzling hot, like me on a good day. The Castillos' six-year-old daughter Margarita had just been taken off to bed after giving me a loud, wet, beso – kiss to you non-linguists. When Ellena came back she squeezed a half a lime over some shredded lettuce and avocado and watched me sternly until I took a bite. She was a tiny woman, extremely pretty, pregnant again. Like all the black Nicaraguans, she came from the sparsely populated Atlantic coast region, I had been informed during the first course, a rice and vegetable soup. With the repast Ricky and I drank San Miguel beer, Ellena a bottled water I had never heard of. I had fairly strong thoughts about bottled water, in fact I still do, but I kept them to myself.
The Castillos lived in a compact, self-contained bungalow in a row of roughly similar dwellings on Parkside, in Inglewood, close enough to LAX to be aware of the almost continuous air traffic overhead but fortunately not so close that plates rattled every time a 747 took off or landed. The kitchen was small and spotless, the wee yard around the house obviously tended with great affection. A large sign on the gate of the Castillos' driveway warned the unwary to beware, there was a large, unchained dog on the premises, but I hadn't seen any sign of one. Too bad, I like dogs, even large, unchained ones.
Well. The Castillos' story was briefly thus and so: during those desperate times a few years back in Nicaragua when the Somocistas burnt, tortured and slaughtered, to say nothing of looted everything lootable, one's choices were few but clearly defined, as they tend to be in all countries ruled by power-crazed madmen – one stayed and shut up, one stayed and fought, one stayed and collaborated or one got the hell out. These choices only applied to those still living, of course. Ellena's brother, Tomas, known affectionately as Chico – roughly translated, Tiny – took to the hills and joined one of the guerrilla bands that were later to unite and be known as Sandinistas. Ricky, Ellena and their daughter got out by boat up the Atlantic, or more accurately, the Caribbean, coast, embarking at Puerto Cabezas. They got off at Vigía Chico and then made their way, mostly by bus, up through Mexico. The daughter was two at the time. They crossed into the United States legally at Nuevo Laredo with one suitcase, a pot or two, and a few crumpled Nicaraguan cordobas worth about ten dollars U S.