“Where are you going?” F.U. asked, latching on to the back of my jeans.
“Where do you think? I’m going to stop that idiot from shooting the buck!” I roared.
“Whoa! Hold on there a minute!” Krabbs cried, grabbing my arm as I was halfway out the door. “He’s not gonna kill the critter; what he’s got there is a dart gun. He’s gotta immobilize the buck so he can cut it loose. Besides, you can’t get out of the Jeep. None of the hunters do—it’s too damned risky out there,” he reprimanded.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I didn’t bother to hold back my laughter. “You consider these animals out here to be dangerous?”
“No,” Krabbs snapped. “What’s treacherous are all the damn rattlers crawling around this place. We’re right next to Rattlesnake Run.”
I followed his finger in the direction of the next fenced-in pasture.
“Anyway, you don’t really think I’d have that critter shot, now, do you?” he asked. His tone turned coy, and his hand snaked over toward me. “I can charge a client four thousand bucks for that privilege. That’s how I make my living, Cupcake.”
I picked up his hand and firmly placed it back on the wheel. “You know what I’ve decided?” I asked, keeping my tone as softly seductive as his own.
“No. What’s that?” F.U. asked hopefully.
“That unless you keep your hands to yourself and stop calling me Cupcake, I might have to use that dart gun on you.” I hopped out of the Jeep, more than willing to take my chance with the rattlers, when the crack of a rifle shattered the ranch’s orchestrated sense of serenity.
I caught sight of the red-tailed dart lodged solidly in the creature’s rump, and breathed a sigh of relief. F.U. hadn’t lied to me, after all.
The buck’s hind quarters gave way as the critter crumpled down to the ground. I walked over to where he lay drifting on a cloud of muscle relaxant. The ranch hand arrived soon after, toting a tool box along with his dart gun. He dropped both and knelt beside the dazed antelope.
The man was as ruggedly built as a linebacker, with hands the size of bear paws. His thick mane of brown hair was loosely pulled into a long ponytail, matched by a beard that spread like urban sprawl over his lower face. Grizzly Adams paid me no mind as he flicked open the tool kit and pulled out a wire cutter. Then he bent over the buck and gently lifted a thin metal strand. He proceeded to cut each one, being ever so careful not to nick a single hair on the sleeping antelope.
“Is the buck going to be all right?” I asked in a whisper, afraid anything louder might somehow break the spell.
But Grizzly Jr. didn’t speak, intent on his task. He removed the metal wire on the buck’s horns and neck, then carefully clipped the jumbled fencing from its legs. Once finished, he checked for superficial cuts, as well as any deeper, camouflaged wounds on the blackbuck’s hide.
“He’ll be fine in a few days. He just needs time to recover,” he said, in a powerful, deep bass.
“You mean you’re actually going to give him a reprieve before bringing someone out here to gun him down for his horns?”
I instantly regretted my remark as a pair of piercing brown eyes pivoted in my direction, their gaze as intense as a kettle on low boil. The man didn’t need to say a word; he burned with the ardor of someone on a mission, like a newly anointed John the Baptist. Either that, or the guy was a closet serial killer. F.U.’s Jeep pulled up behind us, drawing an invisible curtain over Grizzly’s gaze. The ranch hand turned his attention back to the antelope.
“How’s it look? My champion buck is going to survive, isn’t he?” F.U.’s voice sailed toward us, filled with concern.
“He ought to be fine,” the ranch hand responded in a voice as flat and empty as a patch of bare desert.
“That’s just great,” F.U. replied, pulling the jeep around in front. “But we’ll give him a day or two to rest up anyway,” he announced magnanimously. “After all, we believe in fair chase here at the Happy Hunting Ranch. Isn’t that right, Dan?”
Grizzly’s gaze captured mine and the curtain fluttered. “Sure thing, Mr. Krabbs,” Dan responded coolly. His focus settled again on the dozing antelope. “There’s no need for the two of you to wait around. I’ll stay here until the sedative wears off, just to make sure a coyote doesn’t come by and get him. Wouldn’t want you to lose your investment.”
“Let’s get going then,” F.U. cheerfully responded. “The other thing I don’t need is for some damned snake to take a nip at this Fish and Wildlife agent I got here.” Krabbs motioned to me. “So, why don’t you hop on back into the Jeep and we’ll mosey along?”
Grizzly’s head never made a move, but I noticed his eyes slide my way. I didn’t care if he was an Elmer Gantry wannabe or the Son of Sam dressed up as a cowpoke; I wasn’t about to let this guy spook me.
“My name’s Rachel Porter,” I said, holding my hand out toward him.
Dan bent down and placed the wire cutter inside the toolbox before standing back up to face me.
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch your full name,” I prompted.
He hesitated, the grip of his hand taking stock of my own. I was surprised to discover that his skin wasn’t as rough and weathered as I’d expected.
Grizzly stared at me with a tinge of apprehension before finally responding. “The name’s Dan Kitrell.”
There was something odd about the man. Perhaps he was on the lam, which would help to explain his uncertainty. For all he knew, I was using the identity of a Fish and Wildlife agent as a guise, when in reality I was actually a bounty hunter.
“We’d better get a move on. We still gotta make it to the taxidermy hut, what with Velma waiting for me back at the lodge,” Krabbs anxiously coaxed.
Kitrell dropped my hand and turned his back without another word.
I rejoined Krabbs and we tore through Out of Africa, edging along Rattlesnake Run before gaining entree into the fenced-in area named Dr. Livingston, I Presume.
“Has Kitrell worked for you long?” I asked.
Our jeepra passed a group of giant African eland that started to follow us down the dirt road, refusing to believe we wouldn’t play Pied Piper and feed them.
F.U. chuckled at the sight as he pressed down hard on the gas pedal, leaving the herd in our dust. “I hired Kitrell a while ago. Not much in the way of references, but he’s a hard worker—and in my book, that’s what counts. Why?” he asked, turning to catch my expression. “Something about him you don’t like?”
I shook my head. “No. Just curious.”
Krabbs tugged on the brim of his cap, causing his embroidered elk to give a quick wiggle. Then he pointed straight ahead. “There you go. That’s our taxidermy hut.”
The plain wooden building was so nondescript it could have been anything from the Unabomber’s cabin to a caretaker’s lodge. The giveaway was the cable line stretching across its pathway: hanging upside down from the heavy wire was the carcass of an Axis deer. Next to it hung a Corsican ram and a North American elk.
“Those are some of the record-class critters a couple of our clients shot this very morning,” F.U. bragged. “Randy should be along pretty soon to gut and get them ready for posterity.”
“Then you do your own trophy work here on the premises?” I inquired.
Krabbs nodded. “Yep. We like to think of ourselves as a full-service operation. What I find is that our customers always tend to feel a sense of regret at the end of a hunt, as if there’s something that’s missing.”
My guess was that something were a few formerly living, breathing four-legged creatures.
“Think of all those critters we saw on our way over here, and how beautiful they are,” Krabbs waxed poetic. “Well, that’s what our clients want to take back home with them. A little bit of nature that they can appreciate and remember forever.”
I looked at the dead elk, which hung upside down by its hooves with its tongue hanging out. “How about just letting your clients buy a videotape of them feeding t
he antelope?” I suggested.
F.U. snorted. “That’s a good one. No, what I mean is that everyone wants to show off a beautiful trophy of what they’ve paid good money to shoot. That’s what hunting trips are all about: man proving his dominance over the four-legged beasts of the kingdom.”
I silently questioned who the civilized creatures really were and which was the brute.
We parked and skirted around the lifeless carcasses to head inside the cabin, which was filled with critters of a very different sort. Row upon row of animal “mannikens” stood as stiffly posed as department store models, fiberglass forms representing every type of species that was to be found on the Happy Hunting Ranch.
There was something oddly zombie-like about the molds, which ranged from life-size figures to truncated busts of shoulders and heads. They were as smooth and featureless as newly hatched pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Some partially finished models, tightly cocooned in tanned hides, patiently waited in a corner for a few finishing touches.
But there was far more. Packed inside large bottles, glass eyes glared out at me like a prize-winning collection of ghoulish marbles, their irises a spectrum of colors in a variety of shapes and sizes. Other containers were filled with an assortment of plastic tongues that could have been sold as souvenirs at a Kiss concert.
Another group of jars held nothing but teeth in a visual ode to lost and found dentures, while boxes overflowed with claws formerly belonging to black bears and mountain lions. The pièce de resistance was the large blood-stained table in the middle of the room. I was beginning to feel as if I’d stepped into some crazed undertaker’s cellar—only this one was brimming with an excess of grisly animal parts.
Come into my parlor and let me dismember you, whispered the taxidermist to the nosy Fish and Wildlife agent.
“This here is like a real artist’s studio,” F.U. boasted. He walked over to a cabinet and flung open its doors to display an impressive array of seeming S&M instruments. “Here we’ve got us some scalpels and tail skinners, along with lip tucking tools. And I believe these are ear openers. Or maybe they’re a pair of stretching pliers.” He picked up an implement in each hand and began a mock duel, in a charade of a Punch and Judy show. “Fact is, we’ve got just about every kind of skinning and defatting knife that’s made.”
“What about the original skulls and skeletons from the animals that are shot? Why don’t I see those here?” I inquired.
“Because we don’t use that stuff. The real critters would just get bugs and smell, or rot. This way, the animal stays looking good forever. Hell, I’ve even had husbands ask if they could haul their wives in here and get ’em done: ‘Keep ’em looking hot, keep ’em looking young, and while you’re at it, get their traps wired shut,’” he added with a chortle.
“That’s probably just frustration on their part after their Viagra didn’t work,” I responded.
F.U. snickered and threw me a wink. “Well, that’s something I wouldn’t know nothing about. Fact is, I’m still looking for a gal who’s woman enough to handle me. But for those men who’ve got problems, we can always build ’em a pair of these.”
He tossed a fiberglass testicle form my way.
“Why don’t you keep the balls in your court?” I pitched them back to him. Turning away, I began to poke around a stack of boxes.
“You ain’t gonna find nothing in there except for a big old pile of furs,” F.U. volunteered. “But let me know if you spot something you like, and I’ll see what we can do about it.”
“Is that a bribe?” I inquired.
“Hell, no. Just a neighborly offer,” F.U. said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender.
I finished digging through a box stacked with the skins of Himalayan tahrs, and moved on to one spilling over with the heavy coats of Mongolian yaks.
“Oh, I think we can do better than them old things if you’re looking to find yourself a fancy coat,” F.U. chuckled.
I spotted a burlap sack hidden behind some boxes in one of the corners and quickly moved toward it.
“What the hell?” Krabbs muttered in annoyance, and started to follow.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather you stay where you are and let me take a look first,” I instructed.
“Listen here, missy. Don’t you forget that I’m letting you do this without one of those warrants.” The bourbon edge to his voice was turning decidedly sour.
The fact that his Texas charm had taken a sudden dive made me all the more suspicious. I pushed the boxes out of my way. There was no question that something was inside the sack; the rough material bulged, as lumpy as an old mattress. Even more alarming were the dark stains leaking through the fabric. The fluid felt sticky to the touch.
A sick flutter careened in my stomach, bringing what little was left of my Pop-Tart popping back up into my throat. I couldn’t decide whether to rip open the sack and check out its contents, or cut to the chase and give Krabbs a head start before making him the target of my own private hunt. My mind reeled at the thought of hunters who would not only partake in killing monkeys, but then have them stuffed and mounted. I held my breath, steeled my nerves, and pulled the burlap bag wide open.
The first thing to catch my eye was the feathery white tail of a colobus monkey, its limbs entwined in the thick, red-maned ruff of a golden lion tamarin. I reached in and a wave of relief hit me, along with a generous dose of astonishment. The fur I was feeling wasn’t real, but a cheap synthetic. This had to be some sort of sick joke, with me as the butt.
Out came a cuddly ring-tailed lemur, closely followed by a capuchin with cute black button eyes. If I were a child, I’d have thought Christmas had come early. But as an adult, I was growing more furious by the minute. Orangutans and squirrel monkeys sailed through the air. A macaque nailed me with a silly grin, followed by a roly poly gorilla. I pressed on through the sea of soft bodies until my fingers finally hit rock bottom. They wrapped around the last wet, furry limb to emerge with a jolly toy chimp dripping with red paint.
“Is this your idea of fun? Exactly what are you pulling here, besides trying to make me look like a fool?” I angrily demanded.
“Whoa! Now, hold on there a minute, Cupcake. I’m as much a victim here as you are,” Krabbs protested.
“That’s it! That’s the last time you call me Cupcake!” I looked around for something I could use to pummel the man.
F.U. derailed me by letting out an angry yelp, while stamping the heels of his “God Bless America” bald eagle boots. “Goddammit, I know what this is! It’s those hare-brained animal rights nuts at it again!” he crowed.
A trickle of red paint had dripped off the chimp, forming a pool of make-believe blood. “What are you talking about?” I asked skeptically.
Krabbs pulled his cap off his head and began to beat it against his leg, as if to give the embroidered elk a good spanking. “There’s a few of them troublemakers that act up around here every once in a while. Just a coupla weeks ago they dressed up like Bambis and laid down outside the gate, doing their darndest to stop a group of hunters from coming in.”
F.U. grabbed hold of a rag and tried to wipe the paint off my arm, then walked over to the boxes that were piled up next to the sack.
“Aw, goll darn it! Wouldn’t you know they’d have to go and throw paint in here, too!”
“Do you have any idea who they are?” I still wasn’t sure whether to believe him.
Krabbs continued to gaze at the mess. “Yeah, I do. Hell, I sure hope Randy can clean up this stuff.”
I was surprised Krabbs wasn’t demanding that the intruders be lynched at the very least, if not gassed, shot, and electrocuted. “I take it that you intend to press charges.” Aside from trespassing, who’d ever gotten in here had thoroughly damaged some very expensive skins.
But F.U. deliberately ignored my question. “God knows, I’ve done my level best to try and make ’em understand that what I’m doing here is helping to save wildlife. Hell, if this
place didn’t make the money it does, I’d be tempted to sell it off to a developer who’d slap up shopping malls and yuppie ranchettes faster than you could lasso a steer. For chrissakes, I’m the damned environmentalist around here!”
I already knew Krabbs well enough to suspect there was a practical reason for his wanting to protect the identity of the intruders.
“I’m going to have to file a report on this,” I bluffed. “I’ll also be starting a formal investigation, which means any arrest charges will show up on the perpetrators’ permanent records.” F.U. flinched. “Unless you care to cooperate and tell me who’s responsible, of course. Then I’ll be able to skip the process.”
“Aw, hell and tarnation!” Krabbs exploded. “It’s my idiot son and that low-class, no-class girlfriend of his.”
Sometimes you just had to laugh over life’s little ironies. “Your son’s an animal rights activist?”
F.U. glanced around as if afraid someone might hear. “Can you believe it?” he groused. “My own flesh and blood turning on me. I imagine it’s something I must have done wrong when he was a young colt growing up,” he contritely admitted in Oprah-like fashion. “I should have taken him out hunting on the ranch more often, is probably what it is.”
Yeah. There’s always nothing like a little blood sport to help bond a father and son. F.U. suddenly caught a peek at his watch and took a White Rabbit hop.
“We gotta get outta here! I’m gonna be late for my lunch!” Krabbs high-tailed it outside.
By the time I made it through the front door, he’d already hauled ass back to the jeep and was waving for me to hurry. Just the thought of Velma’s wrath had the man quaking in his boots. I wondered if I could pay her to give me lessons.
“I’m curious. Where do you get most of your animals from?” I asked upon joining Krabbs in the jeepra.
F.U. turned toward me with a grin licking at his lips, as he drove like a bat out of hell. “Tell me something first. Do you still think I’m such a bad fella?” he asked coquettishly.
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