Land of Wolves, page 5
I locked up and walked to my truck and was just about to open the door to an expectant Dog when I thought I heard a lone and plaintive sound from the west, high in the mountains.
I paused and listened, but there was nothing more. Figuring it was just in my head, I turned back and opened the driver’s side door, but then I heard it again. Still unsure if it was just my imagination, I glanced in at my 145 pounds of canine mix as his eyes glowed and he lifted his massive head, answering with the bellowing call of the hound of the Baskervilles.
Boy howdy.
3
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
We were bumping along the gravel road and over the moguls of ice that remained in the shadows of the Bighorn Mountains south of town, and I was actively failing in an attempt to keep my hat over my face. “Not much.” Finally giving up, I slouched against the passenger door and watched the sun slowly burning the late-morning mist from the Powder River Country like it was a doomed ghost.
“Double Tough texted me and says he’s happy to come up and meet us at the Extepare place, if you want.”
A lazy smile played on my face before my head bounced against the inside of the window again. “He’s bored down there in Powder Junction?”
Saizarbitoria laughed, the black Vandyke splitting to reveal his white teeth. “Probably, but he thought that since the family has a propensity to relieve law enforcement of appendages . . .”
Glancing out the window, I watched as we approached the gate of the fifteen-thousand-acre ranch. “Tell him I’ve got my Basque secret weapon with me and we’ll be fine.” Pulling the notepad from my pocket, I thumbed it open and held it in front of the Basquo’s face as he drove. “What do you make of that?”
“Your drawing?”
“Yep.”
“That you made the right choice with a career in law enforcement.” He glanced at it again as we bounced along. “Where did you see that?”
“On a tree, near where Hernandez was hung.”
“Arborglyphs—carvings. The old Basque shepherds used to do them on the aspens all over the West, but like other traditions, there are less and less of them.”
“These were fresh.”
“Really?” He studied them again. “The first one at the top is a flower symbol that is supposed to ward off evil. And the two figures below represent a father and son, I think.”
Folding up the notepad, I dropped it back into my pocket.
Sancho fought with the steering wheel again. “So, to get it straight, the old man Abarrane blew Lucian’s leg off?”
“No, not Abe, his father, Beltran.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“Well, you missed your chance—he’s been dead for quite some time now.”
“When did that happen exactly?”
“You mean when did he die?”
“No, when did he blow Lucian’s leg off?”
“Late forties, after the war.” I glanced over at the Basquo, who still showed interest in the story. “Lucian was over on Jim Creek Hill in Sheridan County, out of his jurisdiction, which explains why it is that he got the drop on Beltran and his brother . . . Jakes, I think his name was.”
“Why was Lucian after them?”
“I think it had to do with a woman that Lucian was married to for a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours? Who was she?”
I sat up, a little annoyed, and loosed my seat belt with a thumb. “Which story do you want to hear, because I’m only telling one.”
He continued to smile, entertained by my morning grumpiness. “The leg.”
“Not that much to tell, really. Lucian slips up on them but then isn’t watching, and Beltran grabs a shotgun and blows Lucian’s leg off and then walks over and stands there advising Lucian that he should take up another line of work before Beltran leaves him to bleed to death. Instead, Lucian uses the sling from his rifle to tie off the leg and drags himself to that old Nash of his and drives into Durant, and the doctor there took the leg.” I sighed. “Shortly thereafter, said doctor left town.”
“What happened to Beltran and Jakes?”
“Three weeks later, Lucian sticks the barrel of his .38 in Beltran’s ear and sends him down to Rawlins for a five spot. When he got back, he’d calmed down a bit. Heck, I think I even saw the two of them drinking together at the Euskadi Bar on Main Street.”
“What about the brother, Jakes?”
I thought about it. “Damned if I know.”
We got to the Extepare ranch and drove past the outbuildings and sheds giving the impression that this was most assuredly an honest-to-goodness working ranch. Abandoned, out-of-date equipment was parked alongside the barns with deeply trenched causeways and weather-beaten grayed posts and poles that leaned southeast in the pervasive wind.
I pointed to where some more modern vehicles and a bulbous ’65 International Travelall were parked in front of what must’ve been the main house, where a man sat on the front steps.
Armed.
Santiago slowed. “Is he holding a sawed-off shotgun?”
“Looks like it.”
Sancho pulled up and parked, and I got out, looking at Abarrane. “Mr. Extepare.”
He squinted his eyes at me as he stood with what looked to be an old, foreshortened Remington automatic half aimed toward the yard beside me. “Sheriff.”
“Are you going bird hunting?”
A short, stocky man with a prodigious nose and earlobes that seemed to comprise the entirety of his body fat, he held the tough-guy look as long as he could and then chuckled. “I did not know if you recognize an Extepare without a shotgun!” He broke out laughing at his joke as I came around the front. “How you doin’, Walter?”
He tossed me the old sawed-off Model 11 that probably hadn’t been fired since before Sputnik. I looked at the crusty, rusted mechanism of the twenty gauge. “What’s this?”
“Dat’s the one dat done it.”
I stared down at the weapon, the realization dawning on me like the slow morning I’d already endured. “This is it, huh?”
“Dat, or Ma Barker hid it under dat lambing shed over at the summer place.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“No other reason my old man woulda taken a valuable piece of iron like dat and hid it unless he had a reason—you give dat to that grouchy boss of yours the next time you see him, you know?”
“He’s not my boss anymore.”
He knocked some knuckles against his lowered head. “I keep forgettin’. G’ttin’ old I guess.”
“We all are, Abe.”
“How ’bout you fellas come in and have a cup o’ coffee?” He nodded and stepped off the porch to ground level, looked up at me, and then glanced over at the Basquo. “Kaixo.”
Sancho extended a hand. “Ondoeskerrik asko.”
“I knew you was one of us people, you handsome devil you.” The old Basquo began laughing. “Zein da zure izena?”
“Nire ib zena Santiago Saizarbitoria da.”
“Pozten naiz zu ezagutzeaz.”
I took a step forward, breaking up the Basquefest. “Abe, I’ve got some bad news.”
He turned and looked at me for a moment and then dropped his eyes to the mud between us. “Yeah, dat Don Butler, he call.” He glanced back at Sancho and then me, turned, and thumped up the steps with tears in his eyes. “How ’bout you fellas come in and have dat cup o’ coffee.”
* * *
—
Abe sat ceramic buffalo mugs on the table with the red and white–checked plastic cover, and I glanced at the frilly curtains that gave the tiny kitchen a European feel. “Where’s Wilhelmina?”
He gestured toward another portion of the house. “Oh, she don’t feel so good in the mornings, so I try and let her get the sleep, you know?”
As Sancho and Abe sat, I studied the black and white photo hanging on the kitchen wall. “I know that’s your father, Beltran, but is the other man his brother, Jakes?” Both men looked as tough as wrought iron.
“Ya, dat ol’ dark-looking Basquo was my uncle—the real black sheep of the family—had the bluest blue eyes you ever saw.”
“Was?”
“Oh yeah, we figure he be dead.”
“Your father was the one who shot Lucian, wasn’t he?”
He sipped the coffee, his eyes sparking over the rim of the mug like daybreak. “There’s some argument in de family ’bout dat.”
My translator decided to join the conversation. “In what way?”
He shot a quick look to Saizarbitoria. “Hard to believe there would be some differences in a Basquo family story, you know?” He leaned back in his chair and studied me. “There’s talk dat Jakes was the one dat actually shot Lucian and that since my dad was the older of the two, he takes the blame.”
Rolling the sawed-off from my shoulder, I looked at it again. “Lucian says it was Beltran that shot him.”
Abe shook his head and laughed some more. “Yep, dat’s what Lucian says all these years all right.”
I leaned the dangerous-looking weapon against the wall and came over and sat with them. “Are you saying Lucian was in on it?”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’, but you give him dat shotgun and see if the statuary limits is up on dat, then you come back here and tell me, you know?”
I sipped the coffee—it was really good. “Whatever happened to Jakes?”
Abe took a deep breath and slowly let it out, twisting at the hairs in his ear. “Don’t know to tell da truth. When my father got out of dat prison in Rawlins, him and Jakes got into it over how Jakes was running the place, and Jakes took off to Idaho and married some Indian woman and started his own spread, a big one—but then he got into money trouble and disappeared back in the eighties. I heard he got hit by a train or somethin’.” Reaching behind him, he picked up the old percolator from the stove and freshened our mugs. “It would have taken a train to kill one of those ol’ Basquos. We ain’t heard nothin’ from dat side of the family since.”
I glanced at Saizarbitoria and sipped my coffee, letting the silence settle in the cozy kitchen, wishing I didn’t have to bring up the next subject. “Miguel Hernandez . . .”
Abe returned the percolator to the stove and then wrapped his stubby fingers around his coffee mug. “Dat poor young man.” He looked up at me. “I never can figure how you get to dat in life—I guess I fought so long for mine dat I can’t think of givin’ it up without a fight, you know?”
“I know.” I waited a moment. “Abe, who saw him on a regular basis?”
“Oh, the camp tender, Jimenez, and my son-in-law, Donnie.”
“And when was the last time they would’ve seen him?”
He thought about it. “Jimenez would’ve seen him last week when he brought him supplies.”
“And Donnie?”
He tried to smile, but it faded. “Oh, dat Donnie would’ve seen him when they move the sheep, but dat’s about all. Him and dat daughter of mine, they don’t want to work the sheep full time—live down in Colorado.”
“And where would I find Jimenez?”
“Up the mountain. I can get you a map or you can check with those Forest Circus guys, they know more about dat stuff than I do.”
I ignored the dig at the Rangers. “Did you know Hernandez very well yourself?”
“Oh, I’m the one dat hired him the better part of a year ago.”
“How?”
“They have dat thing with the federal government dat allows us to hire folks for jobs the Americans won’t do, dat H2O program. Them labor people in Colorado, they sent me his information, and I met him down there in Greeley where he had some family he was staying with. He was a funny guy, smart . . . book-learning smart, you know? Too smart to be herdin’ the sheep, but he wanted the job and I gave it to him. He done real well, ’cept for that one time.”
“And what was that?”
“Oh, about a month and a half after we hired him, Jimenez went up to drop off supplies and the place look like hell, and Miguel was layin’ there drunk with his arms which was all cut up.”
Santiago lowered his mug. “What had happened to him?”
The old Basquo imitated dragging a blade across his forearms. “He done it himself; cut his arms with dat knife he had.”
Sancho looked at me. “He was cutting himself?”
“Like I said, he was high strung with all dem books and such. I don’t think he ever got used to the mountain and mountain ways; some never do, you know?”
I glanced around the kitchen, a little sorry that I hadn’t known the herder better. “Is there anyone else who might’ve made contact with him?”
Abe twisted the hair in his ear, almost as if he were winding up his brain to answer. “Dat bartender at the Euskadi, he overserved him a couple of times. I come in there, and dat herder, he done drank a good hundred dollars of the money I give him. So, I load him up and get him out of there.” He took another sip of his coffee. “Sometime you don’t do well on your own and then you turn around and don’t do well with people.” His eyes came back to mine. “Then what you gonna do?”
“Anybody else?”
“Nope, not dat I know of.”
“You say he had family down in Greeley?”
“I don’t know ’em, but yep, dat’s what he said.” He nodded and then rested his eyes on me, and for the first time I could see a glimpse of those hard men captured in the black and white, now residing in the son. “You tink someone did this to him?”
“We don’t know, but we’re trying to find out.” I drained my mug and sat it back down. “Abe, have you ever heard of a woman by the name of Keasik Cheechoo?”
He paused for a long moment and then slapped the table, causing Santiago to start. “The wolf woman!”
“So, you’ve met?”
“Dat woman, she crazy!”
Sancho laughed. “In what way?”
“Oh, she got all kind of ideas about how those wolves are people and dat we gotta take care of ’em.”
“Well, they are an endangered species.”
Abe shook his head and pointed a stubby finger in Sancho’s face. “You wanna know who the endangered species is, dat’d be us, dat’s who. I been losin’ my ass in the sheep business my whole life, but nothin’ gets me quite like pullin’ a squirmin’ life out of a half-dead sheep an’ nurturin’ that thing along till it has half a chance of life, and then some damn wolf or coyote eats the poor thing’s legs off and it’s layin’ there in the mornin’ for you to find . . . Market value is what they give me, market value, ya know?, and sometimes dat ain’t worth a tinker’s damn!”
He broke off his diatribe midsentence, and I turned to see that a very sleepy five-year-old boy in a one-piece set of pajamas, rubbing an eye open, was standing in the doorway.
“Oh, hey. Did Poppy wake you up with dat loud voice?”
The boy nodded and crossed the room to be swallowed up by the old man’s arms that pulled him in close and then shifted him onto one knee. “Did you know dese guys are the sheriff and his deputy? They got badges and everything!” He poked a finger my way. “If you ask him nice, that big fella there is the sheriff and he might show you dat badge of his.”
Smiling at the boy, I pulled my coat open to reveal the hardware, and he woke up a bit, leaning forward.
Abe smiled at us. “He don’t talk all that much, but you should see him fish.” He turned the boy in his lap and hugged him close. “Can’t you fish, tell ’em.”
The boy remained silent and seemed to have a hard time meeting our eyes. But that was nothing new in our line of work—you got used to people not looking at you.
Sancho lowered his head and pushed back his ball cap. With a little one at home, he was quick to break the ice. “Hi, what’s your name?”
Abe answered for him. “Liam.”
“You want to be a deputy, Liam?”
The little guy didn’t respond, but then Saizarbitoria pulled something from his pocket and handed it to the youngster.
Liam opened a hand and took the gift, and I could see it was a gold-painted, metal badge that read SHERIFF with crossed six-shooters at the top.
“That badge is better than ours, because it can make noise. Hold it up to your mouth and blow into it.” He demonstrated. “Just blow like a whistle.”
Liam slowly raised the badge to his face and blew, and to my surprise, it made a whizzing, siren noise.
“That’s it!”
For the first time, the boy smiled.
Abe stood him on his feet and patted his back, sending him off. “You go with Nanna while I say bye to dese nice men, okay?”
The smile faded, and he shot past us like a small fish, darting through the doorway like it was dark water.
“He don’t talk much, but he listens, and I guess dat’s more important, you know?”
I nodded and stood up, reaching back for the shotgun. “Are you sure you want to part with this, Abe? Like you said, the statuary limits on the crime have passed . . .”
He smiled and stood along with me, hitching his thumbs behind his wide elastic suspenders. “Oh, you makin’ fun of me now?”
“No, I’m not.” I stuck out a hand. “If you hear anything, I’d appreciate it if you’d give us a call.”
“Will do.” He turned to Saizarbitoria, transferring the hand his way. “Egun on.”
The Basquo nodded. “Egun ona izan dezazula.”
“Bai, bai.”
* * *
—
Bumping back down the roadway, Sancho sawed the wheel, drifting to the right and then straightening his unit so that we barely missed one of the leaning poles. “Lays it on a little thick, doesn’t he?”
