ShotgunRelations (12 page)

“I don’t like it, little gal, not one bit,”
he muttered as he turned and stomped out of the room.

Jack stroked her cheek, his touch more
soothing than sexual. “You’ll get through this, honey. I promise. Meanwhile I’d
better go do my part and keep an eye on Frank, whether or not he likes it.”

Liz ran her fingers through her hair and
massaged her throbbing temples. This had been the worst twenty-four hours of
her life, and she’d be a total basket case by now if not for Jack. When she’d
woken early this morning from whatever Doc Baines had given her to knock her
out, he’d been there holding her. Lending her his strength.

“Miss Wolfe, Sheriff Atkins is here to see
you.”

Liz looked up and saw Maria, the
housekeeper, stepping back to let the sheriff come into the ranch office. “How
can I help you?” she asked.

Atkins looked at her, a strange expression
on his weathered face. “We found a truck with tires that match the casting we
made last week after the Bar C cattle were rustled. You may want to get your
lawyer before you say anything.”

“Maria, please get Mr. Duval and ask him to
come inside. He’s out at the paddock with Frank.” Liz had a sinking feeling
that the truck belonged to the Laughing Wolf from the stern look on the
sheriff’s face. “Jack will be here in a minute.”

“Look, because we found the truck, that
doesn’t necessarily mean I think you or your mama had anything to do with those
rustled cows. It’s my job, though, to investigate all the possibilities.”

Liz didn’t know what to say. When she saw
Jack come through the door, she calmed down. She trusted him to take care of
whatever accusations the sheriff might be making in his down-home, slow-talking
way. “Jack is here now, Sheriff. Would you mind going over what you found and
where?”

Jack came over and put a comforting arm
around Liz. “It will be okay, honey.”

“I hope so.”

“I don’t want you to worry. Sheriff, would
you mind going over with me what you just told Liz?”

“Not at all. I assume you’re the Wolfes’
lawyer, right?”

“That’s right.” Liz guessed that was true
since Jack had bought out the Merrimans’ practice, and old Dan Merriman had
apparently handled the ranch’s infrequent legal issues.

“Okay, one of my deputies matched the
casting of the tires we found in the pasture next to the Bar C where the cattle
were taken last week. An open stock-hauling truck with the same kind of tires
was found this morning in an old cow barn on the other side of the ranch, near
the highway. It’s a Laughing Wolf truck, the kind that’s used to haul a few
head of cattle.”

Liz took a deep breath. “Sheriff, that must
be one of the two open trucks we keep to move our stock around on the ranch.
When we send steers to the feedlots, we contract with a hauler who uses
eighteen wheelers. Both of those trucks should have been sitting right where
you found them for at least a month, since it’s been that long since we shifted
any cows or horses from one pasture to another.””

When Jack squeezed her shoulder, she took
that to mean she shouldn’t volunteer any more information, but damn it, she had
nothing to hide. “If somebody used one of those trucks last weekend, he didn’t
have my permission.”

“We’re dusting the truck for prints. Unless
the driver wore gloves, we should be able to find out who drove it last.”

“Are you sure which one of the trucks was
used?” Jack asked.

“Only one of them has the right kind of
tires. The tread on them is unusual.”

“Jack, come over here and look at this.”
Liz went to her desk and flipped the computer to the ranch’s accounting
software. When he joined her she pointed out an entry for eight truck tires
that had been bought about two months ago.

“What, honey?”

“We bought new tires for both of those
trucks in August, not long before the fall roundup.” She pulled up a scan of
the invoice from the tire store in Lubbock. “See, all the tires were exactly
the same.”

Jack turned to Sheriff Atkins, who’d ambled
over to look at the screen over Liz’s other shoulder. “Did you ever think that
somebody might have switched their tires for the ones on that truck to throw
you off their trail?”

Atkins shook his head. “I hate to say it,
Liz, but I think you may have a rustler workin’ for you, one who doesn’t have a
record. All your employees checked out when we ran them through the computer
for priors.”

“Before you come to the conclusion that Liz
is involved with rustling cattle, Sheriff, you might want to check the ranch
hands’ private vehicles to see if any of them have new tires like the ones that
were put on that truck. Somebody could have gone in the cow barn and switched
tires with theirs after they heard you’d found the tracks and taken castings.”
Jack hit the print button on Liz’s computer and handed Atkins a copy of the
invoice for the eight new tires.

“Good idea.” Atkins phoned a deputy and
ordered them to look for a private vehicle that had tires like the ones Liz had
bought for the trucks. Then he scratched his head and looked back at Liz. “Who
could have gotten into the barn? It was locked when the deputy went in to take
a look. He’d have had to get a key from Frank, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes. The barns away from the house are
supposed to be kept locked all the time except when somebody needs to get
something or put something inside them. They’re only used for stock when it
gets too cold to let them stay outside and that’s only a few days every year,
usually in December or January. Frank has the only key I know of except the
master that stays locked up here in the safe. He could have lent it to
somebody, I guess, but he’d have insisted that the key be returned to him.” Liz
worked the combination and opened the safe, bringing out a board full of keys
labeled for the various buildings around the ranch. “The master key is right
here where it belongs.”

Sheriff Atkins’ phone rang, startling Liz
as she put the keys back in the safe. “Fuck, I hate to do it, but I’ve got no
choice. Find Frank and put him under arrest. Be careful though, he may be
desperate enough to try something foolish.”

He turned to Jack and Liz. “Deputy Allen
just found your tires, Liz. They’re on Frank Williams’ truck.”

As much as she sometimes wanted to strangle
Frank for treating her like a kid who was none too bright, Liz didn’t want him
to be involved in anything dirty, like stealing cattle. “You think he took the
Bar C’s cows? Where would he have put them? He and his wife live in the
foreman’s cottage here on the Laughing Wolf. They’ve lived here since I was a
little girl.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Frank could own a
piece of property somewhere fairly close by, to stash stolen stock until he can
alter the brands and market the animals. Or he could be partners with somebody
who has a smaller ranch in this area. From what the task force people said,
rustlers are pretty damn smart these days.”

“Jack, will you defend Frank?” The least
Liz and her mother owed Frank was that, for the years he’d spent taking care of
the place after her dad’s death.

He shook his head. “That would be a
conflict of interest, honey. I can recommend a guy over in Lubbock who
sometimes handles criminal cases on this circuit. Karen can’t take his case
either, because it’s Bar C stock he’ll be accused of rustling—for now, unless
the sheriff finds evidence about other rustling or worse. What are you
recommending that the district attorney charge him with, Sheriff?”

“Right now, all he can be charged with is
rustling Bar C cattle. That would be grand theft in lawyer lingo.”

“Which would be a class-one felony. That
sounds serious enough to me. Liz, I don’t recommend that you or your mother
help him make bail.”

Sheriff Atkins looked straight at Jack, as
though he didn’t want to say it to her. “We don’t know exactly how Dale
Cavanaugh died yet but I don’t believe for a minute that the ME will say it was
from natural causes. I’ve got a sinking feeling we’ll find that the bullet that
put a hole in Yancey Cole’s head will match up with one of the guns we just
confiscated from the foreman’s house. Deputy Allen says Frank has quite a
collection. You know, Duval, I feel as bad about this as Liz does. Frank and I
have been friends since we started school, long before either of you was born.”

When the sheriff finally left to deliver
Frank to the jail in Caden, Liz gave in to her distress and leaned against
Jack. “I need my master now, not the ranch’s attorney. If you hadn’t been here
for me, I’d have crumbled into a million pieces.”

Jack held her tight, laid kisses along her
jaw. “I’ll always be here for you, don’t you worry about that.”

* * * * *

Four had invited them all to stay at the
Bar C, out of the way of the deputies and forensics experts from the Texas
Crime Laboratory who’d pretty much taken over the Laughing Wolf. Mavis had
readily accepted but Jack had decided to take Liz to his place instead. While
he’d made some degree of peace with his old man, he didn’t feel cozy enough
around Four to spend a night or two in his palatial ranch house.

“I want to have you all to myself,” he told
Liz as he drove them back to town. She had her head on his shoulder and her
hand on his knee, but he sensed she needed comfort at the moment more than sex.
Having to identify the dead cowboy yesterday had given her quite a shock,
understandably so. It had taken Jack several hours to lose the nausea that had
hit him when he’d looked at a stranger’s bloated face. It had been much worse
for her since she’d known Dale Cavanaugh. Liz had also expressed mixed feelings
about Frank’s arrest, which Jack understood.

He laid a hand over hers and gave it a
gentle squeeze. “When we get home I’ll put on some quiet music and we’ll sit
out on the porch, hold hands and watch the moon. Would you like that?”

She shook her head. “I need you to hold me.
Jack, I’ve never been so scared in my life. What if Frank used the ranch to run
a rustling business? What if he stashed stolen stock somewhere on the property?
We’ve got a lot of acreage and not all of it’s tended every day.”

“You’d only be responsible for his actions
if you’d been aware of them and done nothing to stop him. Nobody believes that
was the case.” She certainly knew that she wouldn’t be implicated legally if
her foreman had used her property without her knowledge, so he imagined she was
feeling responsible for not having realized her foreman had been up to
something nefarious before he was caught. He didn’t have a clue how he could
take that worry off her mind.

“Do you think Frank could have hidden the
stock he rustled on the Laughing Wolf?” Her voice sounded shaky and he
understood exactly what she was worried about.

“That isn’t likely. He’d have had to have
more than a couple of cowhands in on his rustling activities to get by with
doing that. Stock requires tending, from what I observed this morning. Sheriff
Atkins believes he may have been in cahoots with somebody who owns a small
spread not too far away, where they can alter brands and get the stolen animals
ready for auction.”

Liz sighed. “I don’t know how somebody
could alter our brand. I’ve never seen another one that looks remotely like it.
Now the Bar C’s—that one would be easy since it’s just the letter C with a
horizontal line above it.”

Jack had seen plenty of the Laughing Wolf
brands on stock earlier today, and he agreed it would be hard to alter
successfully. It consisted of two small triangles, one large one and the letter
W in the center—a stylized wolf with a grin on its face. The Bar C brand,
though, he could envision a good many ways to alter—and he was no rustler.

“Caden arrogance, I suppose, thinking no
one would dare step on their land and steal their property.” Jack had no
trouble imagining Four and his ancestors feeling just that certain of their
power to protect what was theirs. “I see your point. There must be dozens of
ways a rustler could alter the Bar C brand.”

“That’s true, except that not many ranchers
brand their stock on the right forequarter, the way they do at the Bar C. That
alone makes the brand hard to alter, because the rustlers would have to register
an altered brand in that location if they want to sell the stock at a reputable
auction house.” Liz sat up straight as they approached the Caden County
courthouse and its third-floor jail.

Damn it, Jack didn’t want her sympathizing
with Frank Williams. “I didn’t realize the location of the brand was
significant,” he commented.

“Yes. All our stock are marked on the left
rear flank. That’s the most common place because it’s the easiest to get to
when the animal’s tied up to be branded.”

When she yawned Jack realized again how
exhausted she must be, mentally as well as physically. “We’re almost home. Do
you want to stop in at The Corral and have something to eat? I don’t have much
food in the house.”

She hesitated a minute. “I’m not hungry but
I know we ought to eat. Maybe a beer or two would help me relax.”

When Jack pulled up to the curve, he
glanced up at his darkened office before helping Liz out of the car and onto
the raised sidewalk. “I want you to forget about everything for now except me
and your stomach. That’s an order,” he told her in a deliberately teasing tone
as they stepped inside the only excuse for a restaurant in the tiny town.

* * * * *

“You know, Master, I don’t think I’d have
survived the last two days if it weren’t for you taking care of me.” With her
belly full, her mind lulled into virtual shutdown and her body relaxed after a
long soak in the tub with Jack, Liz felt she might actually be able to go to
sleep without taking another of the knockout pills Doc Baines had given her yesterday.

“I’m glad I could help. Now I want you to
get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be another stressful day.” When she lay on
the bed beside him, he rolled her on her side and held her. Demanding nothing,
he lent her his warmth, his strength. She loved the way he stroked her as
though she were a favorite pet, while his warm breath against her hair reminded
her he was there, protecting her as nobody had done since her father had died.