Shadow Man (26 page)

Even for an energetic young man in his prime, Charlie Moon had entirely too much work to do. Yesterday, he had spent the full day carrying heavy rocks and two-by-eights. Day before that, he’d hauled a truckload of feed and grain from McCabe’s Mercantile, stacked it in the Sour Creek shed. Today, urgent business had brought him to the Big Hat. County Agent Forrest Wakefield was running tests on 120 head of Herefords and Moon was determined to keep a close eye on things. They were working at the north corral, which was attached to a low, long horse barn. Wakefield was supervising one of his summer employees. While a crew of Columbine cowboys worked the beeves through a squeeze chute, the veterinary student was drawing blood samples. The trick was to get the animals clamped in without a mishap. If a steer fell in the chute, getting it back on its feet again was tedious work. When a Mexican cowboy slapped a wild-eyed Hereford on the rump, Moon watched that last animal lope across the corral, through an open gate into a fenced pasture. “Well, that about does it.”

Wakefield nodded, wiped a shirtsleeve across his forehead. “Yeah. And I’m danged glad to see the last of ’em.” He instructed his assistant to take the blood samples to the truck.

Moon watched the sturdy young woman carry the stainless steel case away. “When’ll you have the results?”

“Couple of weeks.” Wakefield eyed the tall Ute. “Guess I’d better hit the road.” He added wistfully: “I imagine you’re about to have some lunch.”

“Yeah, it’s got to be a habit.” Moon squinted at the midday sun. “We do that every day, along about noon.”

The hungry man looked toward the ranch house. “That new fella still doing the cooking?”

Moon nodded. “Cap’s the only hand we got who can boil coffee and burn meat.”

Concerned that he was not getting through to the Ute, Wakefield dropped a five-pound hint. “I bet he’s fixing up something that’ll stick to a man’s ribs.”

“Oh, nothing special.” Moon wore an innocent expression. “Today’s menu is fried chicken, smashed potatoes and brown gravy, green peas cooked in butter. Biscuits made from scratch.” He paused to let that sink in, added: “And rhubarb cobbler.”

The hopeful diner raised his nose to sniff the air. “When I was a little boy, we had fried chicken almost every Sunday.”

“Well, ol’ Cap makes it just like Momma did.”

“And rhubarb is my favorite kinda pie.”

Moon grinned down at the six-footer. “Then you and your assistant better have lunch with us.”

The county agent felt his stomach growl. “Oh, we wouldn’t want to impose. And I really oughta get on down the road.”

“Another time, then.”

“Well, if you twist my arm—”

Someone cleared his throat.

Moon turned to see his youthful straw boss. “What is it, Kyd?”

Jerome Kydmann, aka the Wyoming Kyd, removed his white Stetson in a respectful gesture. “Sir, it’s about that horse.”

The Ute’s face darkened. “Sweet Alice?”

“Yes sir.”
The boss don’t like to hear this kind of news but it’s my job to tell him.
“You remember how last week, she threw Little Joe Piper into the side of the barn, broke his right arm and his collarbone?”

The rancher nodded.

“And the week before that, how she pitched Portuguese Tom over the corral fence? And how ever since, his eyes are crossed and he ain’t been able to walk a straight line?”

Another nod.

“And how on Independence Day, that ornery horse—”

“I know Sweet Alice’s history, Kyd. Get to the point.”

Jerome Kydmann lowered his gaze to his hat, rotated it in his hands. “Well, Pete Bushman, he thinks—”

“I know what my foreman thinks. Pete told me yesterday we ought to sell Sweet Alice. To one of them packers that grinds horses up for dog food.” The Ute shook his head. “Before I’d do that, I’d shoot her dead.”

The Wyoming Kyd took a deep breath, shot the boss a man-to-man gaze. “I am speaking for the wrangler and all of the men. The way we see it, all she does is cripple up one good cowboy after another.” He paused. “Sir, there is some horses that can’t be rode, much less gentled for regular work.” He glared at the animal, who was standing in the corral—listening to every word. “And that is sure-enough one of ’em.”

Moon looked down his nose at the earnest young man. “There is no such thing as a horse that can’t be rode.”

The Kyd straightened his back to the last notch. “In all due respect, sir—that is a lot of hooey.”

“Hooey?” Moon swallowed a smile. “That’s pretty strong language.”

Kydmann stood his ground. “That’s what I said.” He spat at a fence post, said it again. Louder this time. “Hooey!”

Moon turned to the county agent. “Forrest, you’re a recognized expert on beeves and horses and other hoofed animals. What do you think?”

Wakefield gave the horse a thoughtful look.

Sweet Alice eyed him right back.

After being stared down, the county agent had his say. “The Wyoming Kyd could be right, Charlie. There are some animals that can’t be domesticated.”

Emboldened by this support, Kydmann pointed his chin toward the placid-looking beast. “That’s the truth. And a blind man with both eyes closed can see—that is one of ’em.”

Looking past the men, down the lane, Charlie Moon saw something else. Topping a ridge, a puff of dust following a motor vehicle. He recognized the automobile. “Among my people,” the Ute said in a disdainful tone, “we take a different view. Our belief is that there are no bad horses. Just bad riders.”

“Hah!” Kydmann said.

Moon gave his employee a gentle, fatherly look. “Say whatever’s on your mind.”

The Wyoming Kyd clamped the white Stetson onto his head, pulled it down so it folded his ears. “You mean that?”

“I do. You got something rattling around in your craw, spit it out.”

“Okay, then.” Kydmann took his time to think up the words, say them just right. “In all due respect, sir—it is us cowboys that end up with the bruises and broken legs and cracked skulls. It is your employees who are expected to take the risks.” He took a deep breath. “
You
have never tried to ride that bronc.”

Moon took the gut punch without flinching. “There is a reason for that.” The boss of the outfit considered the callow youth with a sad, worldly-wise expression such as managers commonly use to intimidate the help. “It has to do with keeping up morale amongst the men.”

Kydmann’s blank look made it clear that he did not follow this line of reasoning.

“I did not want to show off,” Moon explained. Considering who was coming up the lane, he was working up an irresistible urge to show off. “Seeing me break that old nag in a minute flat would’ve made you less-able riders look downright pitiful. Why, esprit de corps would’ve gone right down the drain.”

The Wyoming Kyd allowed an expression of mild amusement to visit his pale face. “Well, that is mighty thoughtful of you.”

Moon looked hurt. “I don’t mean to call your word into question, but that remark sounds just the least bit insincere.” He nodded to indicate the equine audience, who had moved closer. Sweet Alice had her neck over the fence rail. “Do you really think I can’t stay on that mild-mannered horse?”

The Kyd nodded. “Not for long enough to say your prayers.”

Moon laughed. “You want to lay some cash on the barrelhead?”

The younger man hesitated. Cowboys were always spitting Trouble right in the eye, but the First Rule around the Columbine was: Never Throw a Punch at the Boss. Not if you wanted to wake up tomorrow morning with your head still on your shoulders. Rule Number Two was: Don’t Never Bet Against the Indian. Luck was always riding along in Charlie Moon’s saddlebags. But this was just too good to pass up. The Wyoming Kyd cocked his head. “Even money?”

“If that’s the best you can do.”

Kydmann grinned to display a perfect set of teeth. “I will lay you a month’s pay you can’t stay in the saddle for…for fourteen seconds.”

“Ten.”

“Twelve.”

The stockman reached for his wallet. “You’re on, Kyd.”

Fifty yards away, in the shade of a shaggy, centenarian cottonwood, the gray Ford sedan was pulling to a stop. The puff of dust that had tagged along behind now waltzed past the automobile, and kept dancing right along till it was gone with the wind.

As Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague cut the ignition, a grizzled old cowboy approached the FBI sedan, walking with a limp. He leaned to look in the window at the handsome woman, presented a friendly grin through a prickly undergrowth of salt-and-pepper whiskers. “Howdy.”

“Good morning,” she said.

He gave her a grandfatherly look. “You lost?”

“No, I’ve been to the Big Hat before. But I don’t remember meeting you.”

He tipped his broad-brimmed straw hat. “That’s because I only signed on a few days ago. They call me Dollar Bill, or just Dollar for short.” He waited in vain for her to show some curiosity about how he had acquired this handle. “They call me Dollar Bill, ’cause I keep the first dollar I ever earned in my hat.” D.B. removed his lid to expose a tangle of gray hair. He removed a seventy-year-old greenback from behind the sweatband, which was in almost as sorry a shape as its owner.

“I am pleased to meet you.” She smiled at the wrinkled face. “They call me McTeague, because that is my name.”

He beamed at her. “You are pretty as a spotted puppy under a little red wagon.”

She beamed back. “Thank you. A lady always appreciates a well-meant compliment.”

He donned the straw hat. “Well, I guess I’d better get on down to the corral, so’s I don’t miss the big hullabaloo. You want to come with me?”

She eyed the crowd. “What’s all the excitement about?”

He did a shrug-and-grin. “From what they tell me, same thing as happens here ever’ week or two—a cowboy with more guts than brains has taken it in his head to ride Sweet Alice.”

“I assume we are talking about a horse.”

“Some of the boys would say so,” Dollar said darkly. He spat three times on the cottonwood bark, used the toe of his boot to make an
X
in the sand, added in a husky whisper: “Others hold to the ’pinon that Sweet Alice is a she-devil that slipped into a horsehide.”

She smiled at the superstitious man. “Then she’s a hard one to ride?”

“Ride? Hah! That ol’ cayuse has never been broke—and no man-child on the Big Hat or the Columbine has been able to straddle her saddle for long as it takes to sneeze. And those dumb enough to try have ended up with broken bones and busted heads…and worse.” Seeing as how a lady was present, he did not elaborate on what was
worse.

“But someone is about to try it again?”

“Oh, sure.” Dollar Bill heard the “why” in her voice. “All because of some damn-fool bet.”

Bet?
Her heart skipped a beat. “Where is Charlie Moon?”

“Oh, the boss’s down there with the rest of the boys.” He chuckled, shook his head. “He’s the damn fool that’s goin’ to get his brains kicked out, and all for a month’s pay. It’ll be quite somethin’ to see.”

She felt her skin go cold. “He won’t actually get hurt, will he?”

“Oh, he’ll get
hurt
all right. Question is—how bad. When I left, the odds was even money he’d get at least one bone busted, one-to-three he’d get himself kilt.” He gave her a hopeful look. “You like to put some money in the pot?”

“Certainly not!” McTeague clinched her fists. “Someone has to put a stop to this!”

Dollar Bill was pleased at the prospect of this new wrinkle. “You want to come an’ try?”

Before he had gotten all the words past his lips, the woman was marching off toward the corral. “Stomping post-holes,” as cowboys like to say.

She would, of course, be too late.

Charlie Moon had seen her coming. Before she had a chance to say, “Are you out of your mind or what?” the tall man was in the saddle. “Okay,” he muttered to the sullen beast, “do your best stuff.”

It seemed that Sweet Alice was all out of
stuff.
The ugly mare simply stood there on spraddled legs, looking bored with mindless cowboys, weary of the burdens life had put on her swayed back.

Seeing McTeague arrive at the corral fence with a look of wide-eyed alarm, the Ute felt the shame burning on his neck. This predicament was the rodeo cowboy’s worst nightmare.
I’m goin’ to look like a regular idiot sittin’ here on a stuffed animal that don’t have the common decency to at least put on a little show—

A keg of equine dynamite exploded underneath him.

It was like getting hit in the butt with a sledgehammer. The occasional bronc rider felt his spine jam up against the base of his skull, his eyes pop halfway out of their sockets, his teeth snap down on the tip of his tongue. And that was the good part. For the next few heartbeats Charlie Moon did not think about the pretty woman who was watching, or even the horse who was determined to do him in.

There was no time for
thinking.

All of his instincts were focused on staying in the saddle. And staying alive.

Blood in her eye, the wily old horse went up with her head pointed north, twisted like a pretzel come to life, hit the earth looking in the general direction of New Mexico.

Cowboys were whooping it up, yelling encouragement that was—depending on how they had placed their bets—directed to either horse or rider.

The animal flipped her muscular rump almost vertical, seesawed this way and that, reared up like a black bear batting at peaches, did a double-crawfish, landed on her stubby forelegs, completely left the earth, launched into a half-sunfish, hit the ground with a thunderous thump that shook every post in the corral fence.

What a fine show! The cowboys waved their hats in the air.

His Stetson gone, his molars jarred loose, Charlie Moon hung on. Every second in the saddle was like an hour inside an Oklahoma tornado.

It was about to get worse.

On the far side of the corral from the spectators, Sweet Alice seemed to lose her footing. (Later on, some of the cowboys would claim that the she-devil had done this on purpose, and with evil intent.) Whether with malice aforethought or not, the mare fell hard against the fence. There was a sickening crunch of
something
breaking. Creosote-soaked railings, for sure—the spectators could see the splinters fly. But some of that cracking sounded awfully like bones fracturing.

The horse laid on the rider for a horrific moment, then struggled to her feet.

Sensing the cold hand of Death, the cowboys stood as silent as tombstones.

Calm as you please, Sweet Alice lowered her head, sniffed at the still form on the ground.

McTeague wanted to move but her limbs would not respond. “Oh, God,” she said, “Oh God.”

By this prayer, the spell of paralysis was broken.

The Wyoming Kyd was the first to vault the fence. The young cowboy sprinted across the corral, brushed past the outlaw horse. The county agent—closest thing to a doctor for thirty miles—was not far behind.

The Kyd dropped to his knees. The boss’s eyes were shut, his body limp.

The veterinarian was there a heartbeat later. Forrest Wakefield poked and prodded, carefully examined Charlie Moon’s prone form. His initial impression was that this did not look good. If the man survived, he would probably have a broken back.

One by one, the other cowboys gathered around. With the head of the outfit down, they waited for the Kyd to take command.

Wakefield felt for a pulse under the thrown cowboy’s jaw. He put his ear to the Ute’s mouth, hoping for a whisper of breath.

They spectators stared.

The veterinarian looked at Kydmann, shook his head.

Kydmann could not believe it. He put his ear to the Ute’s mouth. Confirmed the horse doctor’s diagnosis.

This was going to be a hard thing to do; both men set their jaws.

The Kyd called on the Mexican cowboy, muttered a few hushed words in Spanish.

Señor Cruz nodded, went back to the crowd. The word was passed to the employees.

One of the cowboys picked up the Ute’s black Stetson, knocked off the dust, pushed out the dimples, placed it on the fallen hero’s chest.

Jerome Kydmann got to his feet. The young dandy removed his spotless white hat, pressed it against his heart.

The other men followed suit, pulling off their soiled, sweaty hats, hanging their heads in mournful fashion.

The veterinarian nodded to his assistant. “There’s nothing for us to do here,” he murmured. “Let’s go.” The stunned young woman followed her supervisor back to the county agent’s truck.

The bow was bent double, the sinew pulled tight. It was as if time had stopped.

Sensing that something had to be done that was appropriate for the moment, Portuguese Tom thought he might sing “Rock of Ages.” Problem was, he could not remember the lines. Falling back on something more familiar, he cleared his throat. In a voice that crackled with age and the ravages of raw whiskey, he began to whine a few lines from an old campfire song:

A pair of the older hands joined in for the chorus:

Transfixed in numb horror, McTeague beheld the eerie performance.
Charlie must be dead.

The dirge continued:

The woman forced herself to move.

Lila Mae McTeague climbed the corral fence, pushed through the cluster of cowboys, knelt by the man who’d had little enough sense to ride Sweet Alice. The FBI agent pressed her thumb under Moon’s jaw, felt an instant surge of hope. “He’s still got a pulse.” She counted seven pulses in ten seconds, multiplied by six. “About seventy.”

Taking but slight notice of her arrival, more sad-eyed cowboys had joined in the song:

The FBI agent had lowered her cheek to his parted lips. She waited for some evidence of air moving, felt nothing.
Oh, my God. He’s not breathing.
All business now, she tilted Moon’s head back, put her mouth against his, exhaled the breath of life into his lungs.

The singers were improving with practice. Harmony was now close and sweet, like a well-honed barbershop quartet.

Oblivious to the singing, McTeague continued her work.
Out with the bad air. In with the good. Out with the bad…If he doesn’t start breathing on his own pretty soon…
But she brushed aside that grim possibility.

As if sensing that her valiant efforts were pointless, the cowboys’ tones had become softer, almost funereal. Tears rolled down one old cowhand’s leathery cheeks.

Lila Mae McTeague paused from her strenuous mouth-to-mouth efforts to check the man’s pulse. It was still there, which meant his heart was getting oxygen. Oddly, it was also strong—thumping like a drum under her thumb. And much, much faster. At least 130.

The FBI agent was a qualified EMT. First in her class at Quantico. She also had a remarkable memory. Running through the written and oral instructions from her training, she tried to recall what a racing pulse could mean in a case like this. McTeague eliminated a half-dozen unlikely possibilities. Arrived at the truth of the matter.

“Charlie,” she said.

No response from the patient.