During the next break he sought Martinez out at the new corral, where he was feeding his horse some crushed oats.
“That’s a fine-looking saddle,” Kerney said as he dismounted.
Martinez, who was inside the corral, grunted and nodded in reply.
Kerney climbed over the top railing, stepped up to the horse, and ran his hand over the padded seat. The craftsmanship was high quality. “Handmade, I bet.”
“Yeah, it is.” Martinez took his horse by the reins.
On the seat by the horn was the saddlemaker’s name, Matt Thornton.
“Does it have a wood tree?”
Martinez nodded.
Where did you get it?” Kerney asked.
“Up in Nevada.”
Kerney shook his head and smiled at Martinez. “It’s sweet.”
Martinez swung into saddle and pointed at the corral gate. “Get that for me, will you.”
Kerney opened the gate and Martinez trotted his horse out of the corral toward Walter Shaw, who was about a hundred yards away on a nice-looking sorrel gelding, harrying a cow back into the herd. Martinez reached Shaw just as the cow scampered into the fold, and the two men paused to chat.
Although he couldn’t be certain, Kerney had the strong impression that he’d agitated Martinez. Why would admiring the man’s saddle get him riled? Most working cowboys were pleased to show off their prized tack. Martinez’s behavior made Kerney all the more curious about him. He dialed his office and asked to be put through to the investigation unit.
Detective Matt Chacon took the call. Kerney described the saddle and asked him to track down the maker in Nevada.
“Sure thing, Chief,” replied Chacon, who had never been on a horse in his life. “I know what a saddle horn is, but what’s a cantle, fender, and tree?”
“The cantle is the back of the saddle seat,” Kerney replied, “fenders are wide pieces of leather along the stirrup leathers, and the tree is the frame of the saddle. Have you got all that?”
“I wrote it down, Chief,” Chacon said.
“Good. I want as many facts as you can get. Who the buyer was, when it was bought, how much was paid, and the type of transaction. Leave me a message after you run it down.”
“Ten-four.”
Over a bullhorn one of Susan Berman’s production assistants ordered the cast and extras to report for a wardrobe and makeup check. Kerney mounted and rode to a tent to be looked over to make sure he was appropriately scruffy for the cameras. Far in the distance he could see Malcolm Usher and a camera crew on the cliff overlooking Granite Pass. Two other cameras were in place at the mouth of the pass, one on tracks with a boom and the other on a crane. A fourth camera, mounted on a truck, would parallel the cattle as they were driven toward the pass.
Up the valley a ways and out of sight, helicopters, squad cars, and stunt men were standing by, ready to roll into action for the exciting chase scene into the pass. High above Granite Pass a small plane with an onboard camera circled. It would capture the arrival of the squad cars and whirlybirds.
After getting his face smudged Kerney helped separate the herd into two groups. Usher wanted some of the cattle stampeded by the approaching police helicopters and cruisers as they entered the pass. According to a crew member Kerney talked to, all the cameras would be rolling simultaneously, and if everything went okay, there would be enough raw footage in the can to edit the sequence to a final cut. But the chances were good, the man added, that Usher would want to shoot the sequence twice.
Trampled by thousands of hooves over three days, the rich grassland pasture Julia Jordan had bragged about now looked pale yellow and used up. The cattle Joe Jordan had rented out for the production were dust covered, thirsty, and cantankerous. In the strong afternoon sun heat waves quivered up from the ground, made more visible by the dust that swirled in the air. The mouth of Granite Pass revealed a narrow rocky trail that wedged and wound along the cliff face toward the Playas Valley.
Johnny joined up with Kerney as he trailed behind the cattle moving toward the pass. “Are you ready?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Have you ridden through the pass?” Kerney asked.
“Twice.”
“There’s bad footing in there,” Kerney said, “and mesquite and cactus on either side just waiting to jab man and beast. These cows are going to go every which way on that trail.”
“Don’t get throwed off that horse,” Johnny said.
“Isn’t that what you used to do for a living?”
Johnny threw back his head and laughed. “More often than not.”
The man with the bullhorn began a countdown. Johnny spurred his horse and veered away to flank the herd on the side where the dolly camera had been positioned. Suddenly, the sound of helicopter rotors and police sirens filled the air and spooked the lead cows into a slant away from the pass. From that point on every working hand forgot about the movie as they ate dust and tried to keep the cattle from scattering.
Kerney entered the pass at the rear of the herd. Pressed tightly together, the cows were clambering over the rocks, crashing through the brush, stumbling against the canyon walls. Some stragglers turned for the valley. Kerney hit them on their snout with his lasso, but only one animal retreated toward the herd. The rest thundered past him to safety.
He pushed Lucky forward, reached out, and slapped a cow on the rump with his coiled lasso. The cow broke right and Lucky cut him off, pivoting and digging with his rear legs, sticking to the animal like a burr in its tail.
Kerney worked the stragglers until the sound of the helicopters and police sirens faded away. He glanced skyward. The choppers were leaving the valley. Behind him the police units were at a full stop.
Johnny’s horse threw dirt as he reined in next to him. “That’s it,” he said. He pointed at the cliff above the pass, where one of the crew stood waving everyone off. “We’re done.”
Kerney looked up the trail through the pass. A bottleneck of frightened cows bawled and kicked in frustration. “Not yet. We need to turn those cattle around, get them out of there and watered.”
“Let the working hands do it,” Johnny said.
Kerney gave him a long, hard look, remembering the day years ago when Johnny had left him out on the Jornada in the fierce afternoon heat, fixing fence ten miles from nowhere, and never returned.
“What?” Johnny asked.
“Do you always leave a job unfinished?” Kerney didn’t wait for a reply. He spurred Lucky forward and spent the next hour helping the hands untangle the cattle and move them back into the valley. Johnny was long gone when the work was done.
By sunset the temperature had cooled down nicely and a refreshing breeze washed across the Bootheel. At the Playas apartment Kerney turned off the air conditioning and opened all the doors and windows. Weary from three days in the saddle, he pulled off his boots and sprawled on the couch. On the living room carpet Patrick was busy building an airplane out of a Lego set borrowed from the nanny’s treasure trove of toys.
Realizing that he’d forgotten to check for messages, Kerney speed-dialed his cell-phone voice mail. Matt Chacon had called, but instead of leaving any information, he’d asked for a call back. Kerney got Chacon on the phone.
“There was no saddlemaker named Matt Thornton in Nevada, Chief,” Chacon said, “so I did an Internet search and found him in Arizona. That saddle was stolen out of his shop a year ago. It has a retail value of forty-five hundred dollars. Whoever took it must have added the sterling-silver cap with his initials to the saddle horn. Do you have a suspect?”
“Possibly,” Kerney said. “Did you confirm the theft?”
“Yes, sir. It was entered into the NCIC computer system the day after it was stolen. The thief got into the workshop by breaking a rear window. He took only the saddle, and it wasn’t even the most expensive one there.”