“Ruger ranch rifle,” he said. “Got to be a million of ’em around.”
“I would think so.” Estelle took the gun and turned so it was pointing off toward the distant hills. She racked the bolt back, and a cartridge spun out of the rifle. Bill Gastner almost caught it in midair, then bent to retrieve it and dusted it off before handing it to Estelle.
“Yeah, I shoulda done that,” Prescott muttered.
“I’d like to borrow this firearm for a day or two,” Estelle said. She pocketed the cartridge. “Would that be all right with you, sir? I’ll bring it back out to you tomorrow.”
“Well, no, I don’t guess that would be all right at all. You don’t just wheel in here and confiscate my guns, lady. I mean, just what are you up to?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned to his two daughters, who’d remained silent though the entire conversation, watching the back and forth like spectators at a ping-pong tournament. “I’d kinda like some privacy here,” he said, and his tone had abruptly softened.
“He’s right,” Estelle added, and Christine looked from her father to the undersheriff, eyes pleading. But this was no time for Gus Prescott to be dealing both with the undersheriff’s questions and an audience as well. “I’ll need to talk with both of you again, but if you’d give us a few minutes?”
For a moment it looked as if Christine would refuse, but then she nodded and touched Casey on the elbow. Estelle noticed that the two girls did not walk back toward the house, where their mother waited. Instead, they crossed the yard again to the corral and the horses. No wonder Christine had felt the need to hurry home from college for this mess, Estelle thought. All Christine’s skills honed over years as a bartender would be needed for a family guided by a father who could always find the deepest rut in a mud hole.
“I don’t think it’s right that you come in here and upset everybody,” Prescott said. “It’s a hard time for Casey.”
“I understand that.” She turned the rifle this way and that, and passed the muzzle close by her nose. Turning the rifle, she looked into the dark recess of the chamber. The aroma was not one of bore solvent or oil. In fact, the rifle itself was grubby, the action speckled with dirt, lint, and dog hair. But it had been fired recently enough that the characteristic aroma lingered.
For an instant, she was tempted to hand the rifle to Gastner, who during his many years in both the military and law enforcement had inspected a myriad firearms, but she decided against it. Prescott was watching her as if he’d handed the rifle to a tourist who had never seen one before. His hand kept reaching out, an almost involuntary motion that said he expected her to drop the little Ruger any moment.
“Could use a cleaning,” she said.
He almost sneered. “You’d know about that, would you, lady?”
“Well, probably not, sir.” She smiled at him innocently. “Do you practice a lot?”
“No. You obviously ain’t bought ammunition lately. God damn near have to mortgage the ranch to afford it. When they got any of it, that is.”
“How about on Thursday?”
“Thursday what?”
“Did you shoot this on Thursday, sir?”
Prescott took a long time forming an answer, and Estelle watched a range of emotions on his face, as if he were trying to solve a really tough Sudoku puzzle.
“You ever seen the number of prairie dogs we got, lady? You let them run, and you won’t have a stick of grass for ten miles.”
“You don’t poison ’em?” Bill Gastner asked.
“Sure. Some. It don’t work. We try everything.”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s as many as there used to be.”
“Hopin’ not.”
“So you were out shooting Thursday?” Estelle was facing southeast, with a full view of the two-track that wound in toward the ranch. In the distance, without stirring dust, the county patrol unit had appeared around the end of the mesa and now idled along the road into the Prescott’s. Still too far away for her to recognize which unit it was, she knew that it had to be either Deputy Tom Pasquale or Sheriff Robert Torrez. The sedate approach, like someone out ambling about with no real destination, suggested the Sheriff himself. The breeze, light and fitful, was to her back, and it would be several minutes before Prescott could hear the vehicle.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t keep track of things like that.”
“Sir, we have reason to believe that at least one shot was fired at Freddy Romero when he was riding on the Bender’s Canyon road.”
“What are you sayin’?”
“Just that. Someone took a shot at him.”
Prescott looked across the yard toward where Casey and Christina were standing, communing with the horses. Casey had been watching them, and for a long moment father and daughter’s eyes met across the distance.
“Nobody told me that the kid got shot,” Prescott said finally. “Enough people been out there that talk would go around. Somebody’d know. Nobody said nothin’.”
“I said that someone shot at him, sir. He wasn’t struck by the bullet.”
“Then how do you know, lady?”
“His four-wheeler was hit, sir. We have bullet fragments that were found in the front tire.”
“And you think I did that? Is that what this is all about?”
“You left the Broken Spur Saloon shortly after Freddy passed by, sir. You’re not the only one who did, but you’re the only one seen driving across the mesa toward Bender’s Canyon Trail, the same route that Freddy took.” Prescott didn’t respond. “I’d have to wonder what it was that the Romero boy was doing that concerned you so much,” Estelle continued. “I can’t believe that it was just his courting of your daughter.”
In the seconds of silence that followed, Estelle could hear the gentle whisper of the approaching Expedition patrol vehicle, and the rancher turned to look. By now, the vehicle was close enough that they could see the shield on the doors and the roof-rack of lights. The figure behind the wheel could only be the sheriff, large and broad-shouldered, one arm out the window as if trying to stroke the heads of the chamisa that passed by the door.
“Spit it out, lady.” Prescott’s voice was almost a whisper.
“I think that Freddy Romero found the remains of Eddie Johns when he found that cat skull, sir. He found Johns’ handgun, and maybe knew exactly what was in the cave. He wanted to come back, but not with your daughter. Casey said that they had an argument about his reckless driving. You read in the newspaper about the discovery of the cat skull, or your daughter told you-either way, you wanted to warn Freddy away so you’d have time to cover up that little cave. You fired a shot at Freddy, and he panicked and crashed.” Estelle watched Prescott, watched the set of his shoulders, the placing of his feet, the flicking of his eyes. The whisper of the Expedition’s V-8 grew louder.
“That’s what I believe happened, sir.”
Prescott turned to watch Torrez’s approach. “I don’t know where you get these wild stories. You can’t prove a word of it.”
“Actually,” Estelle hefted the rifle, “I think we can.”
“You can’t just come onto my property and confiscate my goods.”
“If you’re in the clear on all this, then maybe that rifle will prove it,” Gastner said. “Think this thing through, Gus.”
“That rifle don’t have a thing to do with me and Eddie Johns,” the rancher said.
“What does, Gus? You think we’re not going to be able to trace that wrecked truck? Match up the damage to it with that old road grader of yours? Something like that?”
Gus Prescott looked down at the ground, then to his left as Sheriff Robert Torrez idled the county unit closer, coming to a stop a few feet behind Prescott’s truck, angled so that it didn’t block the sheriff’s view of them.
“I always thought a lot of you, Sheriff,” Prescott said finally. He looked up at Gastner, eyes sad.