Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) (15 page)

"You don't really think so?" I took a big bite of hamburger. I'm not usually a fan of this particular food, but I had to admit, the Saddlerack did a good job with them. Not to mention that hamburgers and hot dogs were the only things on the menu-besides steak.

Lisa seemed to be considering my question seriously. "Maybe," she said at last. "If I were married to Joyce, I'd sure run around."

"I know. And I don't want to upset him. But if one more weird thing happens, I'm going to the cops. This is getting spooky. Come on; finish that hamburger and let's go back and check on Chester."

Chester seemed OK when we got there. I told Lisa to keep a good eye on him and call me if he got worse, then climbed back in my truck.

Lisa stood by my door, a slightly desperate look on her face. "Gail, I'm sure you're tired of this, but we're having a practice roping tomorrow night, for the Rancher's Days roping."

"I know." Lisa looked miserable. "But Dad refuses to cancel it. He's had it every year for over twenty years now."

"Yeah," I said slowly.

"So would you consider coming up to practice with us tomorrow night and then rope with me in the big roping? That way you could keep an eye on things." The words tumbled out of Lisa in a rush.

"I haven't done a lot of good so far," I told her.

"But I feel safer when you're around."

"I'll think about it, Lisa. If Lonny will haul our horses up here, I'll try and come practice tomorrow night. But if anything else happens, I'm warning you, I'm going to the cops."

"That's OK with me. Dad's the one who's going to skin you alive. Thanks, Gail."

"See you tomorrow," I said.

SIXTEEN

Tuesday did not begin auspiciously. I spent the morning with one of my least favorite clients, preg-checking her herd of forty broodmares. A pregnancy check on a mare is no big deal, if you have a set of stocks handy or the mare is gentle. Amber St. Claire had no stocks, however, and several of her mares were downright rank.

In order to check a mare, I had to stand directly behind her and thrust my arm (encased in a plastic sheath) up her rectum all the way to my shoulder. Thus I could palpate the cervix and uterus and determine if a mare was bred or open. Naturally, such a position causes a veterinarian to become extremely vulnerable to being kicked. Without stocks, I normally tranquilized any mare whose disposition I was unsure of. Amber, however, wouldn't hear of this.

I turned away, doing my best to hide what amounted to outright fury. If the decision had been up to me, I would have dispensed with Amber's business then and there, but I knew Jim was not going to see it my way. Instead, I simply motioned at Amber's stallion manager to lead the first mare up. Maybe I'd be lucky.

I wasn't. The fourth mare I examined launched a savage blow at my midsection. I jerked sideways reflexively and she caught me on the thigh instead of in the guts, but it still hurt like hell.

Limping in circles, I cursed the mare and Amber impartially but inaudibly. When I could control my voice, I said, I hoped quietly and firmly, to Amber, "The rest of these mares get tranquilized. "

She didn't say a word. No doubt she was worried I'd sue her. Good. Let her worry.

Tranquilized, the rest of the herd presented no problems, but I returned to the clinic knowing full well that Amber's phone call would have gotten there before me. Sure enough, Jim motioned me into his office as soon as I walked in the door.

"I know; I know," I said wearily. "Amber just called to tell you I'm an incompetent veterinarian."

Jim's brief grin came and went. "How did you know?"

I recounted my adventures briefly and finished up with, "I'm not preg-checking any more questionable mares without tranquilizing them. I don't care what the client wants. My whole thigh's black-and-blue."

I shrugged. He knew as well as I did that I was right. It was just one more battle in our never-ending employer-employee struggle. Jim was as tight with money as Amber St. Claire, and his work ethic was Puritan in its intensity. The only reason he cut me any slack at all was that I had lasted with him for almost five years-a world's record. No other vet had stuck it out for longer than six months.

I endured Jim for a number of reasons-not least because I wanted to stay in Santa Cruz and Jim was the only competent horse vet in the area. I couldn't afford to open my own practice and, to be fair, Jim was more than competent; he was unsurpassed as a diagnostician. I'd learned a tremendous amount in my five years of working under him.

To top it all off, I'm stubborn. I was determined not to give up and quit, and Jim, for his part, seemed at least halfway pleased to have found someone who could keep up with his work schedule. Despite the fact that he paid low wages, expected long hours, and had a tendency to shift the difficult clients off on me, we got along. Mostly because I made sure of it.

Still, Jim irritated me at times. And this was one of them. I was further annoyed when I climbed back into my truck for the next call, turned on the air conditioner, and heard only a dead rattle. No cold air. Of course. I'd forgotten. The air conditioner was broken, and Jim had declined to fix it, saying we didn't need one in this climate.

I rolled the windows down, and a hot wind blew restlessly around me. It was better than nothing. Four hours and six calls later I was not so sanguine.

"Damn you, Jim." I thumped the dashboard in annoyance, hoping something would fall into place and the air conditioner would kick in. The temperature was in the nineties.

At least I was done for the day. I headed for Lonny's place, wishing I had time to go home and take a cool shower. But I had promised Lisa I would go to this practice roping, and Lonny had agreed to haul the horses up there. I needed to hurry.

It was six o'clock when we drove into the Bennett Ranch. I looked carefully at the colorful tangle of trucks and trailers parked in the field next to the arena. About a dozen rigs. A few I recognized; most I didn't.

Lonny parked and we got out and unloaded Burt and Gunner. As we saddled, I smelled the familiar roping arena smell. A summer evening smell. Horses and cattle and dust. People stood in little clusters by their rigs, talking, roping a dummy steer, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer. A few kids ran around. And everywhere there were horses. I smiled to myself. A roping arena felt like home.

Getting on Gunner, I rode over to the barnyard. Glen, Tim, and Lisa were saddling up.

"Hey." Glen gave me his straight look, a smile that was more the intent of a smile than any perceptible motion of his facial muscles. He pulled the cinch tight on Smoke. I looked at the horse a minute, admiring him.

A registered Quarter Horse, Smoke was as good-looking as a stud gets, his dark blue-gray color a perfect complement to his little head, his massive, powerful rump, his strong shoulder and curved neck. Even with his ears pinned as they were now, annoyed at the pressure of the cinch, he looked noble, a horse straight out of an old painting.

Glen caught my gaze and I smiled. "He sure is a nice-looking horse." Glen smiled back.

"He's a good one." He slapped Smoke's neck with affectionate pride.

The stallion stood quietly for this, as he did for most things. Glen used him just as if he were a gelding, which was good, if you could get away with it. I'd heard it said that stallions were either lazy or crazy, which was as handy a description as I could come up with. The bottom line was that there were stallions you could ride and rope on and treat like a horse and there were those you had better never take your eye off if you wanted to live to a ripe old age. Smoke was in the former category.

I saw that Lisa was saddling Chester and said, "I take it he's OK?"

"He passed the oil this morning, and he's seemed normal all day. I'm just going to rope a couple on him."

"Sounds good." Turning Gunner, I rode back toward the arena, taking a look around to see who was there. Mostly local ranchers, it seemed, several of whom I recognized.

Pat Domini rode by on her big, high-headed gelding, a horse she called Dragon, an immensely powerful beast who was one of the best head horses I knew of. His color, a solid dark red, technically called liver chestnut, combined with his size, gave him an oddly imposing presence, added to which he was a high-powered, snorty sucker with a way of looking at people as though they were insignificant ants to which he was personally indifferent. Dragon seemed a particularly fitting name.

Though Pat was a tall woman, she looked small on Dragon's back. I smiled a greeting at her, and she smiled back -absently, I thought. Immediately afterward she looked over her shoulder, toward the ranch entrance, and I saw her face get tense. I turned my head to find what she was looking at.

A small silver Mercedes was pulling into the field, one of the sporty two-seater type, with the top down. It looked like an elegant little toy next to the large trucks and trailers. Sitting in the driver's seat was Charles Domini.

I glanced back at Pat. She didn't exactly look glad to see her husband. Her eyes narrowed sharply, but then her face smoothed out. "Charles is here," she said to me, with a shrug in her voice.

I didn't say anything. Charles seldom roped but occasionally came to Glen's to lean on the fence and watch. I thought myself he was mostly interested in hearing the gossip.

He unfolded himself out of the Mercedes and strolled toward us. As always, he looked subtly overdressed, though he wore jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt, like virtually every other older man there. It was the sheen of the shirt, the gleam of the polished boots, the flash of gold around his neck and on his wrist. Charles didn't look like a roper.

Pat rode in his direction. I turned Gunner and went the other way, missing whatever scene Charles and Pat were planning to play out. Threading through the parked rigs in the field, I headed for the gate to the arena, intending to warm Gunner up.

Walking past an unfamiliar rig, a truck with a large camper on the back, hitched to a battered stock trailer, I glanced idly in the window of the camper-and met the eyes of a face looking out. The impact was sudden and startling, like walking around a comer and finding someone with their pants down. I jerked my eyes away and moved on. But I recognized the face, all right. It was Sonny Santos in that camper.

I rode into the arena and kicked Gunner up into a lope, my mind spinning. Should I tell Glen or Lisa that Sonny was here? What good would it do? Surely I would only start a brawl.

I saw Lonny loping Burt and rode up beside him. "I need to talk to you," I said.

Before I could get any further, Lisa hailed me from over near the chutes. She rode in my direction, smiling. "We're roping together this weekend, right?"

"I guess so," I said. "If I can get Saturday off."

"So we'll practice together tonight? You don't mind me stealing her?" Lisa flashed a smile at Lonny.

"He's just got his head horse, anyway," I answered for him, "and I need a heeler. It'll work out just fine."

All of us looked over to where Glen sat on Smoke, talking to Al, who seemed to be complaining about something. He was a big bull of a man with a voice to match his bulk, and we could all hear his querulous tones. I couldn't catch the words, though.

Suddenly Lisa's gaze shifted from Glen and Al to the parking lot. Her eyes had a look of intensity that made me wonder if she'd spotted Sonny Santos roaming around. I followed the line of her vision and saw a blue Cadillac driving into the field, looking as incongruous as Charles's Mercedes. It parked near the arena, and after a minute Joyce got out carefully and walked up to the fence.

I stared. Joyce was turned out. Her immaculate sky blue pants were topped by a billowing snowy white blouse with silver sequins, and her cowboy boots and purse were white. Her ash blond hair was carefully arranged, and no doubt if I'd been close enough to see it, her makeup would be equally detailed. She looked like a TV version of a rancher's wife, totally unsuited to the dusty arena where she stood.