Big Red glared, silently informing me that she didn’t appreciate my under-handed tactics. “I’m Mr. Krabbs’ personal assistant, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t have any appointments today. So unless you want to tell me what this is about, you don’t stand a chance in hell of making it any further.” She folded her arms across an ample Texas range of chest.
I crossed my own arms in the hope of sending back a similar message. “I’m a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and this is official business.”
“All the more reason you need an appointment,” she countered. “Mr. Krabbs isn’t partial to being bothered by trespassing federal agents.”
I was about to hit Big Red with a return volley when a shock of white hair, sculpted into an Elvis pompadour, floated into view. Perched on top was a zebra-striped ball cap with a slap-happy elk embroidered in a bull’s-eye.
The cap’s owner was a dead ringer for one of my very own favorite, finger-licking trademarks—the legendary Colonel Sanders. Except this Texas cowboy was casually attired in jeans, a red checkered shirt, and a pair of pointy lizard skin boots handtooled with red, white, and blue American bald eagles.
My western colonel continued to amble toward us, having apparently taken no notice of the skirmish. He stumbled slightly as he passed me, so that his arm deliberately brushed against my chest.
“Howdy there, miss,” he drawled in a voice as smooth as aged bourbon, his cornflower blue eyes twinkling.
Wow! A cowboy who didn’t call me “ma’am.” Just goes to show, the older I get, the easier I am to impress. Gut instinct told me this was the guy I was after.
“Mr. Krabbs?” I’d decided not to deck him for the ‘accidental’ quickie feel, since he’d called me “miss,” but the over-the-hill Don Juan kept right on strolling past. Hey! What did he think I was, some easy case of hit-and-run?
I whirled around only to have Big Red cut me off at the pass.
“I believe I already said Mr. Krabbs won’t be able to see you today,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Well, that’s too bad—because today is just perfect for me.” I turned sideways and body-slammed Big Red, shoving her out of my way.
I sprinted down the hall, but my colonel was nowhere in sight. I shoved open the lodge door and dashed outside, with Twinkle Toes hot on my heels.
Krabbs had already climbed into one of the motorized zebras, and started its snorting engine. This was no time to worry about manners. I made a mad dash for the Jeep, jumped inside, and set my fanny on the seat beside him.
Krabbs instinctively pulled back in surprise. The next instant, his mustache twitched in delight and his eyes lit up like a pair of sparkling Christmas balls.
“I gotta tell you, Cupcake: I got me a wife. But if that don’t bother you none, maybe we can work something out.”
I was about to respond, when my redheaded shadow beat me to the punch.
“Don’t say another word, F.U.! The woman’s a goddamn fed!” Big Red screamed at the top of her lungs, her fringe shaking in an out-of-control hula.
Jeez! It wasn’t as if she needed to yell; the two of us were sitting right here. And what was the term ‘F.U.’ supposed to be? A polite abbreviation for a curse word?
Krabbs leaned across my chest and yelled back, “What’s that you say? She’s a vet?” He picked up my hand and stroked it. “Well, we already have one of those, but I’m sure we can find something else for you to do around here. I know of at least one thing that could use some tending to,” he added, giving my fingers a squeeze.
Big Red scurried over to the driver’s side of the Jeep, where she bent down and placed a finger behind each of his ears. It took a moment before I realized she wasn’t tickling his fancy, but boosting the volume on a pair of old-fashioned hearing aids.
“Goddammit! I said she’s a fed! This woman’s here to nail your ass to the wall.” By now, her blush had turned from “Like a Virgin” pink, to “Madder Than Hell” red.
Krabbs slapped her hands away in annoyance. “What the hell are you talking about, Velma? Why, this gal was just coming on to me! We were beginning to get all nice and cozy.”
Krabbs started to scoot closer, then jerked back as if having received an electrical shock. “Which is why you got here just in the nick of time,” he continued, his tone turning unexpectedly gruff. “You know how I’d hate for the missus to think anything improper might have been going on between us.”
Though his eyes remained glued on Velma, his fingers glided over to me in an easily interpreted dance. He followed that up with a sneeze, which allowed him to turn his head and throw me a sly wink.
“I believe I got me a tissue around here somewhere.” Krabbs fumbled about and then made a dive down toward my legs.
I deftly pushed him away with an arm. “Gesundheit!” I warned in stern reprimand.
I wondered if there was room for two more heads on the Happy Hunting Ranch’s wall. “Mr. Krabbs, I’m Rachel Porter with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and I’m here about a call I received. There’s been a report that a number of monkeys were killed on your ranch, and that the bodies are in your possession.”
“Monkeys? Hell’s bells! What in tarnation are you talking about, gal? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. No hunter in his right mind would fork over a plug nickel to gun one of those miserable things down.”
Krabbs gave an involuntary shudder, as if an invisible monkey’s paw had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Hell, they’re nothing but goddamn filthy critters, all full of germs and stuff. Here at the Happy Hunting Ranch we only present the best, top-notch, grade-A wildlife to be shot.”
It was nice to know the man had his standards. “I’d still like to take a look around the grounds. Nothing personal, but when this kind of call comes in, it’s my duty to check it out,” I calmly responded.
“That’s nothing but a big ol’ pile of cow patties!” Krabbs grumbled. “You know yourself that monkeys aren’t any good for mounting on a wall. And nobody’s gonna eat the damn things with all that AIDS crap going around.” Krabbs’ hand wandered up to his cap, where his fingers idly caressed the embroidered rump of Happy Hunting’s trademark elk. “Tell you what. You forget this nonsense and I’ll give you a hat just like mine. How’s that sound?”
Now, there was a bribe for you. “Tempting as that is, I’ll go for the guided tour,” I informed him.
“You don’t have to let her do that, F.U.!” Velma fumed. Her fingers tightened on the driver’s side window ledge as if she were about to rip off the door. “She knows damn well this is private property. Which means that if little Miss Busybody wants to nose around, she’d better have herself a search warrant.”
Krabbs gave her hand an approving slap, followed by a pat on the cheek. “By golly, honeybunch here is right! But that’s what I pay this heifer the big bucks for.”
Velma blushed, and her lips trembled slightly.
“So now, tell me. Have you got yourself one of those hide-and-seek papers she’s talking about?” He flashed a wide smile, displaying receding gums.
I had about as much likelihood of getting a search warrant from the local court as Krabbs had of receiving an award from the Humane Society. “I don’t see why there should be any problem with my taking a look around the place. Unless you have something to hide, that is.”
Krabbs picked up an empty bullet shell casing near the gear shift, and popped it into his mouth. He rolled the object around with his tongue while he thought the situation over.
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’ve got anything to hide; it’s just that I don’t see what’s in this for me. Making things all nice and easy for you, I mean. Tell you what. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” he suggested flirtatiously. The metal casing clacked against his teeth.
Cute. If this was the game he wanted to play, I was more than happy to oblige. “Let me put it this way, Mr. Krabbs. I’ll get a search warrant, if that’s w
hat you want. The only difference will be that I’ll take the place apart inch by inch when I come back, since you’ll have had plenty of time to hide whatever evidence there is. And trust me, I’m very good when it comes to finding what it is that I’m looking for,” I archly warned.
Krabbs nearly swallowed his bullet. “Who the hell do you think I am? Saddam Hussein, running around concealing stuff?”
“No,” I answered. “I think you’re a man who’s smart enough to let me poke around as discreetly as possible, in order not to rile up your guests.”
Krabbs slowly rolled the shell in his mouth once more before spitting it into the palm of his hand. “I’ve decided I like you. You’ve got gumption, gal.” I caught his eye roaming down over my form before coming back up to meet my gaze. “Besides, you’re pretty good looking for a fed. You can call me F.U.,” he said, with a wink. “It’s short for Frederick Ulysses, which is just too damned big a mouthful to say.” He threw the zebra’s throttle into drive.
“Where are you going?” Velma asked in alarm, firmly holding on to the jeep with both hands.
Krabbs looked over at me.
“I’d like to examine the taxidermy hut,” I firmly replied.
“Then that’s where we’re headed,” he answered.
Velma pulled her tangerine lips back to reveal a set of choppers which gnashed together with the fury of an attack dog. “I’ve got to warn you, F.U. You let some Fish and Wildlife agent come prancing in here to do as she pleases, and I guarantee she’ll keep coming back demanding more.”
“Hell, that’s what I’m counting on,” F.U. chuckled. He gave Big Red a pinch on the cheek, and then pried her fingers off the door. “Don’t you worry, honeybunch. I’ve got everything under control.”
As we pulled away, Velma’s ill-tempered vibes were as sharp as a set of Ginsu steak knives being flung at my back. Krabbs’ Detroit zebra countered Velma’s psychic attack by throwing back a small storm of gravel.
Three
West Texas is a land of wide, open spaces, most of it privately owned. Throw in the warm climate, and a ride through a hunting ranch is somewhat like being in Africa. Except that the wild animals you encounter on the African veldt don’t act as if they’ve been munching on Prozac.
“I’ve got 15,000 acres here, Cupcake. If you like, we can spend all day together and mosey through every single one of them,” F.U. obligingly offered.
“Since I don’t have all day, let’s just head right to the taxidermy hut.” I already envisioned Velma scurrying back inside the lodge and calling every available worker. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find the hut in pristine condition by the time we arrived there.
Krabbs steered our mechanical zebra to the right and headed down a long, bumpy dirt path. We finally arrived at a game-proof wire fence that stood a good ten feet high. A weatherbeaten wooden sign bearing the name Hatari hung over its gate. Krabbs drove up to a push button alarm pad mounted on a cement pole and punched in a numerical code. The gate compliantly swung open, then automatically slammed shut behind us.
“Wait till you see this place. These critters here lead a nice, peaceful life, just as if they were in a zoo,” F.U. said, his eyes getting all misty.
Right. Until somebody picks them off like ducks in a shooting gallery.
I spotted a herd of doe-eyed Thompson gazelles which looked like a bunch of extras hired for a remake of Bambi. The gang didn’t run away as we passed. Gathered around a feeder, they were intently chowing down on mounds of cracked corn. I noticed that a timer controlled the food supply. By the look of it, this place was more of a petting zoo than a ranch. Where else would you find “wild” animals lured to baited areas at designated times, clearly expecting to receive a hand-out?
“Now, look at that. What could be a sweeter sight?” F.U. sighed. “I got me forty different kinds of horned and antlered herbivores from all over the world, living on fifteen fenced-in pastures. Each pasture is a thousand acres of paradise.”
“And I wager the other fourteen pastures have feeding stations exactly like these,” I replied.
“You bet your boots they do!” Krabbs confirmed. “Hell, we don’t get the prices we charge for keeping a bunch of scrawny critters running around the place!”
We exited Hatari and drove through another coded gate to enter a pasture designated Out of Africa. The main attraction in this section of paradise was a herd of long-maned wildebeest furiously jostling for space around giant bales of hay. They had no fear of people either, probably because they’d been hand-raised in captivity. It must be quite a feat for some guy with an automatic rifle the size of a small cannon to drive out and blast a couple of these critters off the face of the earth.
“Why does the ranch have fifteen different gated areas?” I asked, curious if there was a practical reason, or if Krabbs nad merely come up with fifteen different cute names.
“It’s because I run this place like a science.” F.U. arched a fluffy white eyebrow that would have filled Colonel Sanders with envy. “This way I know exactly which animals are where, at all times.” His fingers idly plucked a stray hair from his goatee. “Say, I have a hunter who’s got a hankering to shoot a water buck, but doesn’t want to take all day doing it. Well, I know we got us a record-class critter grazing over in Kilimanjaro Pass that’s worth thirty-five hundred smackers. I’ll have Dr. Dick geared up and out on the range before he’s finished sipping his first Diet Coke. By the time he’s halfway through his second, a guide will have tracked the critter down and set it in Dr. Dick’s gunsite, ready for him to shoot. Then the good doctor can move on to bagging himself the next critter on his list, if he wants.”
Talk about efficient. “You must get some real conservationists coming to the ranch,” I remarked caustically.
“You betcha!” F.U. eagerly agreed. “Every trophy hunter out here is a real conservationist at heart. Hell, they want to make sure there are plenty of animals around, so that they can come back and shoot more of them next year.”
I was tempted to comment, when something off in the distance caught my eye. An adult blackbuck antelope stood framed against the solid blue Texas sky, its luxurious coat as deeply rich as a pool of dark chocolate. The Zorro of the antelope world, the creature had mask-like rings of snowy alabaster encircling its eyes. But what made this blackbuck so highly prized was the impressive thirty-inch horns which flared out in a V-shape, their spiral twists braided tightly as corkscrews. Though I knew blackbucks were among the fastest animals on earth, it quickly became apparent that this particular antelope wasn’t about to go anywhere.
The creature buckled down onto its knees while frantically twisting its head, where a convoluted tangle of wire was snarled around the buck’s magnificent horns. The critter’s front legs were entwined in another jumble of razor thin metal. The sun’s liquid fire highlighted one more slender, lethal strand: a single loop was coiled around the antelope’s neck in a hangman’s noose, where it wound tighter and tighter with each convulsive jerk. Another few minutes of this and the distraught animal would be strangled.
“Stop!” I cried in terror.
But either Krabbs’ hearing aids were on the blink, or his mind was elsewhere. I threw my left leg over the gear shift, slammed my foot down hard on the brake, and switched off the ignition.
F.U. reacted by snatching my leg and pulling me toward him. “See that? I just knew there was a spark ’bout to burst into flames between us!” he exclaimed.
“For God sakes, look over there!” I commanded, grabbing hold of his chin and pointing his face toward the buck.
“Holy NRA! That don’t seem good.” Krabbs quickly reached for his walkie talkie and pushed the speaker button. “Velma, this is Papa Bear,” he called, holding the unit close to his mouth.
The reply was a dense wall of static. I was ready to leap out of the jeep and cut the creature loose myself, but I knew the buck would only hurt himself further in his ensuing panic.
“For chrissakes, Velma! Sto
p your sulking and pick this thing up!” Krabbs shouted.
Apparently Velma was giving Krabbs a dose of some good old-fashioned silent treatment.
“Goddammit,” F.U. muttered to himself. He paused, took a deep breath, and brought the mouthpiece to his lips once more. “Please, sugarplum. This is really important,” he cooed, his fist quietly pounding on the steering wheel. “I know I forgot about Secretary’s Day this year. So, how’s about you and me having a nice lunch together later on? Just the two of us. Only there’s this one itty bitty thing I gotta take care of first.”
“Are we going out someplace nice, or do we have to stay here?” Velma’s voice crackled through the air with all the gentility of a rocket launcher. “And while we’re at it, let’s get this cleared up once and for all. I’m not your damned secretary. I’m your personal assistant.”
“Whatever you say, puddin’.”
“All right, then. What is it that you want?” Velma grudgingly relented.
“I need someone in the northwest quadrant of Out of Africa, on the double. We got us one of them blackbuck males all twisted up in some damn loose wire, and the sonuvabitch is down on the ground.” F.U. was about to hang up, when he thought better of it. “Thank you, sugarplum,” he added.
“You’re welcome. I’ll make reservations at Chez Bull ‘n’ Bear for noon. Over and out,” she brusquely replied and hung up.
In less than four minutes, a black and white striped “jeepra” came hurtling across the Texas plains and headed straight for the injured buck. It came to a halt about twenty yards away from where the animal knelt, with its neck awkwardly contorted and its hind quarters rearing up in the air.
The vehicle’s door flew open and a man bolted out holding a .22 caliber rifle with a stainless steel spotting scope attached to its barrel. I pushed open my own door, determined to stop him.
Border Prey Page 3