I raised my eyebrows. Uncle Dede and Sonny Lord had been friends for over thirty years. Sonny had been a local legend around these parts, having won the gold buckle on the rodeo circuit twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, he’d spent much of the intervening time trying to crawl out of a bottle.
“What’d you tell him?” I asked.
Uncle Dede took a sip of his coffee. “I told him to put in applications over at the stables and the stores first,” he said. “But I guess I’ll carry him till he finds something better, or moves on again.”
“The latter’s probably more likely,” I said, withholding further comment on my uncle’s friend. Sonny’d been drifting back to Pueblo like a migrating falcon for as long as I could remember. He’d come back for a while and straighten up, then fall back off the wagon and vanish for a few more years. Usually he would work the rodeo circuit. But not as a champion anymore. Now he was only the clown or cleanup man.
“He says he’s taken the oath,” Uncle Dede said solemnly.
“Haven’t we both heard that one before?” I said sceptically.
“Heard what?” Sonny said, slipping up behind me. I turned, somewhat startled. He was tall and angular, and looked better than the last time I’d seen him. The grip of his rawhide hand felt strong and sure. He strolled over to the counter as Uncle Dede handed him a fresh cup of coffee. Despite all his problems with the bottle, Sonny still had a picturesque look about him. Sort of like Gary Cooper. And like Coop, he had a way with the ladies. The tales about his romantic prowess were virtually legendary. He nodded thanks to Uncle Dede for the coffee and struck a wooden kitchen match to light up a cigarette. Removing his hat, he sat down on a stack of boxes and swallowed some of the dark brew.
“Ah... Just the way I like it,” he said. “Nice and hot, just like a good woman.”
Uncle Dede handed a second cup to me, and I sat across from them and listened to their stories. It was hard not to like Sonny when you sat listening to him spinning a yarn. After about twenty minutes there was a lull in the conversation.
“Like I was telling Dede, Rick,” Sonny said. “I done took the oath. And this time I intend on keeping it.”
I nodded, swallowing the last bit of my coffee.
“I don’t blame you for being doubtful,” he said. “But there’s just one way for me to prove it. Say, you still going out with that pretty little gal Carol?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re engaged.”
“Well, congratulations,” he said, extending his hand. “You set the date yet?”
“No, that’s still a ways off,” I told him. “I gotta finish school first.”
“She’s gonna inherit a lotta money, I hear,” Sonny said slowly.
“Yeah,” I said, wondering how he knew so much. When she turned twenty-five, Carol would inherit control of the trust fund that had been set up in her mother’s will. I think it stuck in McKitrick’s craw that she’d be able to do what she wanted then. In the meantime, he could pretty much call the shots.
I pulled out my wallet and showed Sonny a snapshot of Carol and me. He grabbed the plastic case and paged through the folders, stopping when he found one of Carol’s graduation pictures.
“She sure is pretty,” he said, staring at the picture and shaking his head. Then, handing the wallet back to me: “You sure are a lucky man.”
“Thanks.”
“How you get along with old man McKitrick?” he asked.
“How does anyone get along with him?” I joked. At first McKitrick sort of approved of me. After all, I was white and pursuing a Ph.D. in a respectable field. But we’d had a minor falling out when I rejected a job with his company in favor of a teaching position at the university that would enable me to finish up my geology degree.
“I just saw him a little while ago.” I told Sonny. I related the brief encounter in the desert, and told them about his comment regarding the Indians.
“Damn,” Uncle Dede said. “I sold him that Sig Sauer. I hope he don’t go shooting nobody with it.”
“If he does, it better be in self-defense,” I said.
We chatted for about five minutes more. Long enough for Sonny to gulp down the rest of his coffee. He seemed suddenly agitated and said he had to take off. After he’d left I asked Uncle Dede if he really thought that Sonny had straightened himself out.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “He’s looking better than I’ve seen him in a long time, but it’s sorta like putting a cougar in a pen. He might be dying on the inside.”
I told Uncle Dede that I’d be back, and went over to the university geology lab and sorted out the samples that I’d bagged along the basin. After fixing the slides I needed and writing up about ten pages of crude notes, I glanced at my watch and realized it was close to five. I’d promised Uncle Dede that I’d help him with the store inventory that night, so I put everything away and stored the samples in my lab locker. Then, after grabbing a quick burger and fries to eat on the way, I drove back to the gun shop. Uncle Dede had a cup of coffee all ready for me and we settled in to work. It took us a couple of hours, and afterwards I watched the counter while my uncle worked on some guns that people had brought in for repairs. Because he owned the gun shop and was the best smith in the territory, Sheriff Pete Gunther had made Uncle Dede a special deputy. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when the sheriff telephoned about twenty minutes before closing.
“You want to talk to Uncle Dede, Sheriff?” I asked.
“No, Rick,” he said. “I was trying to get ahold of you. I’m out at the McKitrick place. You’d better get out here pronto.”
“Is Carol okay?” I asked, panic edging into my voice.
“She’s not injured,” he said slowly. “But the doc’s on the way to give her a sedative. Her father’s been killed.”
“Killed?” I said. Uncle Dede’s head popped up from the trigger mechanism he’d been working on.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Apparently Mr. McKitrick went riding earlier today out on the north forty. His horse came back in riderless about four hours ago, so they figured he’d been thrown or something. They went out lookin’ and found him out by the canyon. Dead.”
“Did he fall?” I asked.
“No,” the sheriff said. “He’d been shot.”
By the time we got out to Carol’s, the drive was a maze of revolving red and blue lights. Sheriff Gunther, visible because of his extreme height and white Stetson, was barking out orders. Uncle Dede strode up to him and asked if he needed any help.
“Not right now, Dede,” he said. “But, Rick, you might want to look in on Carol. Doc Gleason’s with her now.”
I hurried into the house and ran upstairs to Carol’s room. The doctor and McKitrick’s fourth wife, Christene, were with her. He’d already given her something, and I held her for a few minutes before she drifted off to sleep.
Christene put a hand on my arm and thanked me for coming. Only a few years older than Carol, she was normally a very attractive woman, but tonight she looked totally spent, her face swollen from crying.
“You all right, Christene?” I asked.
“It’s just such a shock,” she said, breaking down again. “There’re so many people I have to call.”
“Why don’t you let me call Mason Gilbert?” I said. “He can handle things while you get some rest.”
Mason Gilbert was McKitrick’s lawyer. He lived in Deming, which was about twenty miles away.
Christene nodded and went down the hall toward the master bedroom. As I was paging through the Rolodex by the phone, Sheriff Gunther and Uncle Dede came in.
“How’s Carol?” Uncle Dede asked.
“She’s sleeping,” I said. “Sedative.”
He nodded, then said, “Rick, I was telling the sheriff about that little run-in you had with Threestalks and Onehorse this morning. Would you mind going over it with him?”