“That wasn’t the reason for my call, Herb, but as a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with Naranjo. They have your truck and trailer.”
Herb eyed me as if he didn’t understand English.
“Delivered to a chop shop in Oposura,” I added.
“Well, hell. Anything left of it?”
“No damage whatsoever. Mexican bureaucracy and paperwork being what they are, you’ll probably be able to pick it up by spring.” The rancher looked heavenward.
“That’s something, anyways.”
I tapped the folder on the hood of the SUV. “We’ve been caught up in a few other things at the same time. You know how that goes.” I pulled one of the maps out of the folder. It was the section of George Payton’s land that included the windmill just south of Herb’s spread. “We need to ask you a couple of things about some of the properties around here.”
“Don’t know what I can tell you,” Herb said, but he pulled a pair of variety-store reading glasses from his shirt pocket. Those adjusted, he supported himself with both hands on the hood and examined the map. “Okay, now,” he said. “That’s right out here.” I reached across and touched the spot marked as the windmill. “Right,” Herb said. “You lookin’ to buy a water well now?”
“I wanted to ask what sort of arrangement you had worked out with George on that piece.”
“You mean about me usin’ that mill?”
“For the water, yes.”
Herb looked askance at me, then took his time to grind out the cigarette butt in the gravel. I could see that he wanted to snap, “Why is that any of your business?” But he didn’t.
“George just passed on yesterday,” he said, and here you are already. He didn’t have to add the latter. We’d known each other long enough that he was aware of my aversion to prying into other people’s business. If we belonged in this conversation-either the Sheriff’s Department or the State’s Livestock Board-then Herb could figure out for himself that we were on the trail of something.
“That’s what prompts my question,” I said. “According to the assessor’s map, this is about seven acres surrounding a producing well. That must be important to you, as the nearest neighbor.”
“’Course it’s important. Christ almighty, you know this country.”
“Did you have a formal agreement of some sort with George?”
Herb looked at me as if I had gone simple. “Well, I guess formal enough. Nothin’ in writing, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Meaning that he said ‘go ahead and use it,’ and you did?”
“That’s about it.” He dug out another cigarette and snapped the lighter.
“Had you talked with George recently?”
“Sure.”
“Did you two talk about the possibility of your buying this property?” The blunt question pulled the aging rancher up short. When Herb looked as if he was going to settle into ruminating too long about that, I added, “We’re trying to determine the status of several of George’s properties.” I knew that sounded lame. When a person dies, the status of property is hardly the province of law enforcement agencies. “That guy collected acreage like some folks collect stamps, and his estate is kind of complicated.”
“He sure did that,” Herb agreed, and I could see him opening up.
“You had talked with him about this parcel? About actually acquiring it?”
“Well, look,” the rancher said. “Last month, I took a rifle over to George’s so he could see it. I wanted to see if he could tell me when it was made.” Herb took a deep drag on his cigarette. “An old Winchester that belonged to my dad. I was always going to do that, and one day here not too long ago, Dale was out shooting the ’86, and the subject come up. He said he’d like to have it someday. I told the boy that the rifle wasn’t never to be sold. He said he’d never do that. Then the both of us got to wondering more about it. So I took it over to George’s. Wasn’t much about guns that he didn’t know.”
“That’s for sure,” I agreed.
“Well, he looked up the serial number in one of his books, and sure enough, it was made right at 1927.” He looked off into the distance. “My dad bought that rifle brand-new from the old mercantile in Deming when he was twenty-one years old. He told me once it cost him two months’ pay.”
“Still worth that,” I said, and Herb hacked out one of his short, rasping laughs.
“God damn if that isn’t what George said, too. Little different wage scale now, though.”
That’s the way it goes with conversations, and I maneuvered to bring us back to the present.
“At that time you talked about the property as well, then.”
Herb nodded. “One thing led to another, and we talked some about that land. George said he was thinkin’ of cleanin’ some things up, and that he’d sell that land to me for a dollar,” Herb said. “He said if he was ten years younger, he’d try to trade me out of that Winchester. Maybe swap for the land. Now, I wasn’t about to do that, then or now. You know, my father shot that rifle for sixty years. I wasn’t about to part with it, especially with Dale wantin’ it. I told George that I’d pay a fair enough price for the land, though.” He bent down and regarded the map once more. “I offered him a thousand an acre and figured that was fair. I kinda depend on that water.”
“He took the offer?”
Herb coughed another little chuckle. “Nope. He said I’d used the land all these years, that I’d fixed up the windmill and maintained it, fixed the fences…anyways, he said no. Pay him a buck, and that’d be it. Wouldn’t talk about havin’ it any other way.”
“And did you do that?”
“Not then, no. Maybe I should have, you know. But I wanted him to think on it some. I felt like that would be takin’ advantage, don’t you know. He said he’d dig out the abstract, and we’d settle up.” He smiled ruefully.
“You hadn’t talked with him about the land since then? He hadn’t called you? You didn’t go over to see him again?”
“Nope. Got busy. You know how that goes.”
I shuffled papers for a moment, and selected the photocopy that included the land on top of the mesa. “And this piece?”
Herb cocked his head sideways, regarding the small map. “Don’t need that more’n what a dollar would buy.” He traced the boundary line with a bent finger. “That’s the rimrock right behind my place. Nice view, and that’s about it. No water. Damn near no grass. Now, I know that Waddell wants it. He’s got some development in mind for right down here,” and he tapped the north side of the mesa, where I had seen the drill rig. “You know,” and his face wrinkled up in a grimace as he turned to stare up at the cloudless sky. “I’m tryin’ to recall how George got ahold of that piece of property on top, there. I think it comes out to about eleven acres. Anyways, I was thinkin’ of cuttin’ a deal with George on that, just so I didn’t end up with a damn parkin’ lot or something lookin’ down from the rimrock through my bedroom window.”
“Had you mentioned it to George?” I turned a bit as an aging sedan headed by on the highway, a 1980s Chevy sedan that had once been dark blue but now bore faded patches on hood, roof, and trunk where the sun had fried the paint.
“Nope. But the mood he was in last month, I damn sure coulda got it cheap.” He straightened up with a popping of joints. “It’s a damn shame how this country gets all chopped up. Give us another fifty years, and a fella will really think he’s got somethin’ when he signs for a quarter-acre lot.”
I wasn’t about to argue that, but my attention followed the Chevy sedan. Now, a profiling cop would peg the big old sedan as a drug runner’s delight, running a little heavy in the rear, with all that trunk space and those nice nooks and crannies along the enormous undercarriage. But I knew the car, and I knew the driver, headed from his parish in Regál to another in María. No doubt he had visited his Mexican parish in Tres Santos, too, but border agents didn’t have to worry. Father Bertrand Anselmo would have no drugs in that old boat.