Steven Havill - Double Prey

She saw a flicker of anxiety on Prescott’s face, and his eyes squinted, focusing in the distance first, then darting to his youngest daughter, then to Christine, who was just coming up behind Bill Gastner. The older man reached out a hand and stopped the girl, who nodded quickly and looked up toward her father.

“Is that what you want your daughters to see? To live with? I can’t believe that. You want that image to be their last memory of you?”

“I…I ain’t going to do you no harm.”

“That’s good to hear, sir.” She smiled at him. “I’ve been harmed enough in the past couple of years.”

“Yeah, well.”

“That leaves some other choices. Are you planning to harm yourself, sir? Have you ever seen what a 12 gauge shotgun does to someone?” Casey whimpered something and out of the corner of her eye, Estelle saw the girl sink to her knees. “I have, sir, and I can’t believe that you want the girls to witness that. To live with that?” Her thumb still held the transmit bar, and she shifted her grip a little. Turning away so she could look out across the open prairie, she shook her head. “So beautiful, sir. Your ranch is so beautiful.”

Prescott stated to say something, but she cut him off. “I was out at the windmill earlier with Casey. She tells me that this is one of her favorite places. Yours too.”

“That ain’t your affair.”

“Sure enough not, sir.”

“Daddy,” Casey said softly, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Maybe you can imagine what this spot will mean to her if you go through with this.”

“You don’t know what I mean to do. Don’t think you do.”

“Well, sir, if you’re not going to shoot me , and you’re not going to shoot your daughters , and you’re not quail hunting, then that leaves you. That’s the way I see it, sir.”

“You can just get off my land.”

“Sir, that’s not going to happen, and you know it.” He looked at her for a moment, and she repeated herself. “That’s not going to happen, sir. And I think that you’re smart enough to know that. When there’s an incident, we don’t just ‘go away.’ In fact, more officers are enroute. My deputies, the state police. Even an ambulance. And you know what? I want it all to be a wasted trip for them.”

“I ain’t going to talk to them.”

“You don’t have to, sir. You can talk to me. Or Mr. Gastner, if you want. You owe it to your daughters now, sir. You owe it to them to clear the air. Years ago, you and Eddie Johns had an argument. What did he say to you, Gus? Did he want you to go into business with him? Is that it? To hook up with the Mexicans?”

“Nothin’ like that. I had no dealings with him.”

“He made some remark about Christine? Is that what it was?” When Prescott didn’t reply, Estelle shifted the radio to her right hand, relaxing a cramping thumb. “We all know how Johns was, sir. Christine tells me that he made passes at her down at the Broken Spur. Is that where it started, sir? You were protecting her, is that it? Who could fault you for that?”

“That son-of-a-bitch…” he started to say, and cut it off. He closed his eyes, and the side of his head actually touched the shotgun barrel.

“He came out to talk to you one day while you were working on the road for Miles Waddell, didn’t he, sir. Is that it? Things went from bad to worse after that?”

“I said it ain’t your concern.”

“How could it not be, sir. We recovered a body. The victim had been shot through the head, just like the jaguar. Now how would that not be our concern? And the why of it all is our concern, too, sir. Self-defense can come in many forms, sir. We know what kind of man Eddie Johns was.”

“Shootin’ somebody in the back of the head ain’t self-defense,” Prescott said.

“Well, sir, that depends on what was said, what was going on. If you felt that Johns was a threat to you…” Prescott’s eyebrow twitched. “Or to your family…” When he didn’t respond further, she added, “I think that there’s a lot of the story that will come out. You have to give it a chance. I know you had a reason for what you did, and you thought it was a good reason, sir.”

“The boy,” Prescott said, and he looked toward Casey, eyes pleading. “I just wanted to scare him off. I knew where he’d been, what he was diggin’ into. I know the girl’s sweet on him, and I don’t care about that. I know you won’t believe that, but it’s true. But he found the cave. I know he found it. I didn’t know what to do.”

“How was shooting at him going to scare him off, sir? Wouldn’t he just go to the authorities?”

Prescott actually laughed. “That little Mexican? I don’t think so. He didn’t want no one findin’ out what he found.”

“The handgun, you mean?” She watched Prescott’s face carefully. If the rancher had known that Freddy Romero had picked up Johns’ automatic, and in fact had it with him on the four-wheeler, why hadn’t he just scrambled down into the arroyo and retrieved it after the crash? Did he panic? Panic so thoroughly that he had forgotten to go back and seal off the little cave?

“Maybe that.” Prescott remained pointlessly cagey, as if he had cards to play.

“What difference would that have made? There was no connection between the gun and you, sir.”

The rancher shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think it through.”

“Sometimes we just act,” Estelle said gently. “Like the Romero boy. He lied about the location of the cat’s skeleton because he wanted to explore the rest of the cave, and find what there was to find. He didn’t think it through.”

“I didn’t mean to hit him.” Prescott cleared his throat. “Didn’t even mean to shoot . It just went off…”

“That’s what the evidence shows, sir. Let us help you,” Estelle said, seeing him sinking into that easy sea of self-recrimination. “Let Casey and Christine help you, sir. You did your job protecting them as best you could.”

“That Romero kid gettin’ killed was an accident,” Prescott said, addressing Casey directly for the first time. “I didn’t even mean to shoot. I didn’t hit him, and I didn’t mean to hit his four-wheeler. If you’d been with him…”

“But you knew she wasn’t, sir,” Estelle said.

“I just saw him comin’, drivin’ like hell’s afire, and I didn’t pay attention. God damn rifle went off without a thought.”

“You didn’t climb down to check on him, sir.”

“Nope. I know dead when I see it.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I guess I got some things to answer for, ain’t that right?”

“Yes, sir, that’s right.”

“Might be easier just to let the sheriff…” His gaze drifted out, across the valley where the sheriff waited. Estelle knew that the rifle’s bolt would be closed on a live round, the safety off, Torrez’s rock-steady finger close to light trigger.

“You think about your daughters before you take that road, sir.”

“Daddy,” Casey said softly, “let them help you.”

For a very long minute, Gus Prescott said nothing. And then, with exaggerated care, he leaned the shotgun forward a bit and waited while Estelle stepped forward and took it from him.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman looked up from her desk as a vast, colorful form filled her doorway. County Manager Leona Speers regarded her with affection.

“Welllllll,” she warbled. “Dare I ask you how things are going?”

The undersheriff leaned back in her chair. “The road ahead is a little straighter.”

Leona’s eyebrows shot up. “My, how philosophical we are this morning. How did the confab with his nibs go?”