Steven Havill: Before She Dies

“And that’s just what did happen,” Holman said.

“More or less.”

“Do the other deputies do the same thing? I mean, do they unload their weapons when they’re at a game?”

“Yes. At least they’ve been told to do so.” I grinned. “They all think I’m foolish for ordering such a thing, too.”

“Imagine if it had gone off,” Holman said, and I grimaced.

“I’d rather not, thanks.”

Holman glanced at his watch. “Karl Woodruff will probably be down before long to spring his little girl. He called me back, about an hour after we arrested her. We talked for about twenty minutes. I’m pretty sure he’s going to swear out a complaint against Victor Sanchez.”

“He can do that.” I shrugged.

“Woodruff contends that the bartender shouldn’t have continued to serve his daughter after she was already so obviously intoxicated.” I chuckled and Holman looked surprised. “It is against the law, Bill. To serve an intoxicated party.”

“Yep. It’s always somebody else’s fault, sheriff.”

“Well, wouldn’t we be within our rights to ticket Sanchez for violation? Shouldn’t Sergeant Torrez have done that?”

“I suppose. By the letter of the law. I can’t think of when we ever went after a saloon keeper because one of his adult patrons strayed across the double yellow. If we go after one, we have to go after them all. All of them. We won’t have time to do anything else. Although the way the mood of the country is right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come to that.”

“Will you at least go out and have a talk with Victor Sanchez?”

“Sure, if you think there’s any point.”

“He’s a hothead,” the sheriff said. “I want him to know from the beginning that we’re not singling him out, or his saloon, or anything like that. If Woodruff presses the issue, that is. Maybe he won’t. I just don’t want Victor Sanchez jumping on one of our deputies because he thinks we’ve singled him out.”

“It would be more to the point to talk with Karl Woodruff,” I said. “But I’ll swing around there this afternoon.”

By two that afternoon, I finally broke away from the blizzard of paperwork and a half dozen other irritations-not the least of which was attending Tammy Woodruff’s arraignment before Judge Les Hobart. She was cleaned up and pretty, just like the photograph the Register had run on the front page three years before when she’d been the Posadas County Fair Queen.

Her father was conspicuous by his absence. Maybe he was sticking to his guns, forcing his daughter to face the court by herself.

And Tammy was contrite…or a damn fine actress. Judge Hobart fell for it and whacked her with a hundred-dollar fine and DWI school on the one charge and restitution for the broken camera to satisfy the assault charge.

She paid with a personal check and left Judge Hobart’s mobile home-office with a smirk on her face. Sergeant Torrez looked at me and shrugged as if to ask why he’d bothered to get out of bed for this show.

I’d promised Sheriff Holman that I would talk with Victor Sanchez. The sheriff was right. In an election year, good community relations were top priority.

After the arraignment I drove out State Highway 56 to the southwest. In four miles I passed the first of the Sanchez family enterprises, Wayne Feed and Ranch Supply. Victor Sanchez’s brother Toby owned that business. He’d bought it from Dick Wayne’s widow ten years before and never bothered to change the name over the door. I couldn’t see that there were enough ranchers left in Posadas County to support the place, but maybe he sold a fortune in windmill parts.

The highway swept around the bulge of Arturo Mesa and then crossed the bridge over the Rio Salinas…a dry wash with pretensions during summer thunderstorms. On the west side of the bridge was a sign that announced the quiet little village of Moore. It had every reason to be quiet. The one house and the mercantile building that still stood under the brittle limbs of half a dozen dead cottonwoods were vacant and vandalized.

Three miles farther on the land flattened out, dotted here and there with marginal ranches that grazed a handful of bony, tough, range cattle. The Rio Guijarro snaked under the highway at mile marker seven. This stream managed to pass a little water most of the time.

Seeing an opportunity, Victor Sanchez had opened his Broken Spur Saloon and Trading Post on the banks of the Guijarro in 1956. And when he saw that those cottonwoods weren’t about to die but were in fact thriving, he went a step further and opened Guijarro RV Park and Camp Sites in 1987. He reckoned that there was enough snowbird and tourist traffic headed down State 56 to Regal and the Mexican border crossing that he might do some good business.

I turned 310 off the highway and rolled into the Broken Spur’s parking lot. Down the road I could see the blades of Howard Packard’s windmill turning in the light breeze. Sergeant Torrez was right-it was a good place from which to watch the bar’s parking lot.

A beer delivery truck was angled so that its side roll-up doors faced the building. Nosed into the shade on the other side of the building was a faded blue and white 1976 Ford half-ton pickup. I shut off the county car and got out, immediately wishing I’d worn a warmer coat. The wind was from the west, picking up a little as the sun dipped low.

The driver of the beer truck saw me first as he wheeled the dolly back for another load.

“How you doin’? Is Victor in there?”

He shook his head. “Junior is, though. He’s in the kitchen.”

I made my way inside, stepping around piles of boxes, a collection of brooms and mops, and scores of aerosol cleaning products-and all the other junk that keeps a place habitable and the health inspectors happy. Junior Sanchez was bending over the sink, snipping fat off chicken carcasses. He straightened up with a hunk of chicken in one hand and large kitchen shears in the other and blinked as I shuffled in.

“Dad’s not here,” he said without preamble or greeting.

I leaned against the counter and surveyed the mess he was making. Not the brightest lad on earth, Junior Sanchez was lucky that he had a steady job with Dad. His older brothers had struck out on their own, Juan heading for California last I’d heard and Carlos working at Chavez Chevrolet-Oldsmobile.

“What are you fixing?” I asked.

Junior turned and looked at the pile of chicken. “Saturday’s always a big fajita night,” he said, and poked at a thigh with the scissors. “Got to get all these ready.”

“Are you still showing the games on the big screen in there?” I asked, nodding toward the double doors that swung into the barroom proper.

“Oh, sure,” Junior said.

“I might have to come over for that,” I said as smoothly as if I meant it. “When’s your dad going to be back?”

Junior went back to snipping. “I don’t know. He had to get something fixed for the bathroom. One of the toilets wouldn’t flush.”

That would be more grim for a busy barroom than running out of fajitas, for sure, I thought. “Well, it’s nothing that can’t wait,” I said. “I was just out this way, and thought I’d see him for a bit. But it’s no big deal. If you happen to think about it, tell him I was here, would you?”

The kid nodded and I left him to his chicken.

I didn’t hang around to see Victor Sanchez. Karl Woodruff wasn’t going to file a complaint against anybody. He might grumble some, but that would be the extent of it. Tammy was out of jail and no doubt reciting her tale to anyone who would listen, and Sergeant Torrez was off duty until Monday swing shift. Victor wouldn’t see him parked down at Packard’s windmill for a couple of days.