A Nose for Justice (32 page)

“Poor guy, comes to my party and winds up working late. And Lonnie”—she laughed—“he was affixed to Amelia’s apron strings.”

“Actually, Aunt Jeep, I don’t think that’s where he was affixed.”

They laughed, then Jeep said, “What a success story Amelia is. Which reminds me. Are you going to car school or whatever you call it?”

“I’ve been looking into it. I’m definitely doing it. Then I’ll be able to help around here by doing more than repairing barbed-wire fences.”

“Good. Ever think about tractor repair, as well?”

“No.”

“It’s different because you pull the motor apart vertically. You might consider it. There’s quite a need, especially for someone willing to travel to the ranches. Just a thought. Ah, look at that now. Isn’t that beautiful?” She’d turned to the eastern sky, awash in crimson and pink.

Then she looked back toward the Petersons. They showed pink except for the folds in the range, which stood out as charcoal or Prussian blue streaks.

As they closed both sets of doors and walked back to the house, Baxter, next to King, asked,
“Are we friends? I know you didn’t want me here when we first met.”

“You’re okay,”
King replied.
“But you’re so low to the ground.”

With that, they took off running.

T
hat afternoon Pete stood next to Mags at the firing range. Once she was under way, he practiced, too. Shooting, like any other skill, demands lots of practice.

When finished, they removed their ear protectors and left the range.

“Should I clean my gun?” she asked.

“Wait a bit. The metal is warmer than you think.” He sat at a table in the clean room. “Would you like a drink?”

“Coke.”

He returned with a Coke and a plastic cup of ice. “You looked like you were having fun.”

“I like that I can do it myself. Other sports you need an opponent. Once it gets warm, we can try clays.”

“Sure.” He took off his Aces ball cap. “How’s Jeep?”

“Herself.”

“She handled those people like a pro. Calm. Gave clear orders. So many people would have panicked or you’d have heard the strain in their voices. You stayed calm, too.”

“Doesn’t do any good to scream and holler. Pete, what’s going on, really?”

He lowered his voice. “Ten people bought land where Horseshoe Estates will be developed. Land with water rights. With the exception of one individual who I actually think just got lucky, I’m pretty sure all these people were tipped off by someone in SSRM or Wade Properties.”

“Egon was one of them?”

“He bought two acres and made out like a bandit.”

“And Oliver Hitchens?”

Pete shook his head. “Nothing. I think maybe he smelled a rat.” He put
his hand over hers. “There’s a great deal of money at stake. The other people who bought land are uncooperative, nervous, or scared. One left town and we haven’t found him yet. I know I’m on the right track.”

“I’m glad Jeep didn’t buy anything in that area.”

“No, thank God. She sticks to the northern part of the county.” He finished his Coke. “If I can figure out what the payoff is, I’ll be that much closer to closing in. And what do these nine people have in common?”

“Wish I had some idea.” She turned her hand up to squeeze his, her makeshift bracelet of the colored bones showing. “But let me show you what I’ve found.”

Back at the house at Wings Ranch, Mags led him into the den. “Look at this.”

“David Cadjaia, Dimetri Mgaloblichvily, Toma Baramidzi, Miron Tschonia, Ivan Baramidzi, Emile Antadzi, Loucas Tschartishvily, Michael Antadzi, Vladimir Jacutahvi, and Sergei Makharadze.” He read the list of names she gave him. “Who are they?”

“Remember I showed you Buffalo Bill’s signature? 1902, September?”

“Right.”

“Well, when researching his show I discovered this program listing the Cossacks riding. Now I don’t know if any of these men actually came out here with him to Wings because all he signed in the visitors’ book was ‘Buffalo Bill and the Boys.’ But if I can find later programs, and one of these names is missing, then I might be onto something. I already know some of these men returned to Georgia. They were really Georgians, not Russians.”

“So was Stalin. Not much of a recommendation.” He smiled. “You’re really on this, aren’t you?”

She held up her left wrist making the beads slide. “I’m going to find out. I swear it. These guys were stars, well all of them were, the Vaqueros, the English cavalry officers, the Arabs, Cubans, Hawaiians, German cavalry officers, Filipinos, Indians. They had followings. I found drawings of some of the riders, sketches by Frederic Remington. Doing something like this is when I love a computer. Aren’t the drawings fabulous? I know there are more that I haven’t found yet.”

“They’re dynamic. If a name isn’t on the program and you can’t find a record of him going home, you think that’s your Russian?”

“Maybe. There aren’t any other candidates at the moment. One thing that’s curious is that Felicia Ford married a colonel in the British Cavalry, the Household Cavalry, at that. He seemed kind of obsessed with Buffalo Bill’s shows.” She paused for a moment. “I’ve never been much of a student of history but I’ve recently learned that Great Britain and Russia weren’t exactly enemies the last half of the nineteenth century, the early part of the twentieth, but they had competing interests that both felt imperiled their nation’s security, so they placed spies everywhere—in one another’s embassies, military units for field maneuvers, even actresses and ballerinas. You name it.”

Pete put his hands on her shoulders. “Exactly how did they endanger each other? England and Russia, I mean.”

“The Brits thought Russia wanted India. I mean we’re taught that England was the center of the industrial revolution, hence the great wealth, but at least part of all that money flowed out of colonial India. What a cornucopia.”

“Mags, I’m not following.”

“The Russians had, I guess you’d call them client states. They paid the rulers of the countries we now call Iran and Iraq, plus they edged into the eastern borders of Afghanistan. Well, what’s on the other end? The Khyber Pass and India. England’s imperial ambitions were clear. Russia’s were becoming more clear. They were headed for a clash, which I guess World War One averted.”

“Isn’t that something? Here’s Afghanistan, one of the most inhospitable geographical places in the world and it was a hot spot back then, too.”

“If you were the British Prime Minister or the Secretary of Foreign Relations in Russia, I don’t know the correct title, wouldn’t you want to know what the other side was doing and wouldn’t you want to know what the United States was up to? We were the colossus on the other side of the Atlantic.”

“Okay.” He sounded a little confused.

“Pete, after 1815 we’ve always been allied with Great Britain. So if you’re Russian you want to keep an eye on us or, the coup of coups, pry us from England and make us an ally. What I’m getting at is that I think Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was full of spies.”

He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Anyone ever tell you you’re smart?”

They talked, laughed, ate a late lunch, then Mags took him for a ride on the ATV up to the Sand Hills to look down on Bedell Flat. The dogs joyously ran along and Jeep watched from the kitchen window as they took off.

On top of the Sand Hills Mags pointed down to Wings and told Pete her great-aunt’s dream.

“She’s eighty-five and she wants to start this new big enterprise. God, I hope I’m like that.”

He stepped off the back of the ATV to look down. King put his head under his hand while Baxter whined to be lifted up. Pete picked up the little guy and kissed his head.

“I hope we’re both like that.”

Pete stayed for dinner. He and Mags played cards with Jeep.

For the heck of it, Mags dealt Baxter a hand, as he was sitting in a chair, then she played it for him.

“He won?”

“Of course.”
The wire-haired dachshund loved the attention.

Later, after Pete left, Jeep said, “My bedroom is at the other end of the hall. You’re a grown woman. Do as you wish.”

Mags kissed her. “Thanks. I’m working up to it.” She touched the Nicholas Cavalry School ring on her great-aunt’s finger. “Think I’m getting close.”

“Good. While you work on that I’m going to stick my nose into all this commotion around here. Like I said this morning, I’m starting to take this personally.”

Old as she was, Jeep’s ego was large and strong. It provoked her onward. Ego can get a person in trouble.

“W
hy aren’t you in church?” Jeep asked Jake Tanner when he greeted her outside his ranch house.

“Could ask the same of you.” He put his hands in the pockets of his insulated Carhartt overalls.

“I worship in the Church of the Blue Dome.” Standing next to her truck, she pointed to the sky, amazingly blue on this Sunday, January 17. “But to hedge my bets I went to the early service at Trinity.”

“Chicken.”

“You know, Jake”—she placed her gloved hands on the hood of her F-150 because it was warm—“I think about these things. Afterlife. God or gods. If there is only one God, then who has him? Jews? Christians? Muslims? Monotheism presents an unsolvable problem. Seems to me hatred, unrest, and ultimately war follows. History bears me out.”

King’s hearing was so sharp he could hear outside with the windows up. He turned to Baxter, his paws on the dash, eagerly watching.
“Why do they worry about those things?”
King asked.

“It’s not like they don’t have enough else to worry about.”

King shifted his weight.
“They believe God looks like them. Vanity.”

Baxter half laughed, half snuffled.
“I hope not. Have you really looked at humans? Some are okay-looking, apart from stumbling around on two legs, but so many of them, best to close your eyes.”

J
eep, hearing what sounded like barking, tapped the driver’s window. “You two behave.”

Jake walked over and stood next to her. “You think about more things
than I do. My wife reads the Good Book. I do sometimes. I don’t know, Jeep, why worry about something I can’t see, prove, or understand?”

“You’ve got a point. Jake, walk with me a minute.”

She headed east across scrubby land. Jake’s ranch rested two miles north of Pump 19. He ran cattle, scratched out a living, and did odd jobs with his equipment. The state sold used equipment, as do all states. Jake had friends in the various agencies, but especially among the road crews. He knew what bulldozers, Bobcats, backhoes, and Ditch Witches were in good order and which ones would cost a fortune to repair. Over the years he’d made wise purchases.

“That was some great party, except for the end. You’ll never top that.”

She blew air out of her nose forcefully. “Goddamned mess.” She stopped, pointing east. “Your spread goes up to August Spring on the west, then you go right on up to the base of Porcupine Mountain. You can be sure you’ve got good water running deep under there because on the other side of Porcupine Mountain is Renner Well.”

“Don’t you own some of those wells?” He knew she owned the southernmost ones.

“I do.”

Jeep’s ranch consisted of ten thousand contiguous acres, but she owned acreage throughout this part of Washoe County. She also owned acreage in other parts of Nevada. Given what the land had yielded to her, she believed there were few investments as wise as raw land. She also owned a few thousand acres in Elko, some in eastern Montana toward North Dakota, and even a sliver along the Wyoming–Montana border. That was grassland.

Jake puffed up. “When I was young I figured there was water on the other side of Porcupine and over there in Lees Flat, why not on this side?”

“You’re a smart man. That’s why I’m here.”

He loved hearing that. “Well, sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not.”

“Have you been thinking about the murders?”

“Hard not to, especially Oliver’s. He was a first-class prick, excuse me.” He bowed his head slightly. No cowboy wishes to swear in front of a lady, but sometimes he can’t help it.