Michael McGarrity - Nothing But Trouble

He dismounted, lashed the last of the cows up the ramp into the stock trailer, slammed the tailgate closed, and turned to see Ross and Pruitt riding at a hard gallop, making for the safety of the partially standing wall of the old line shanty. As he remounted to join them, car headlights lurched over the crest of the ranch road. Through sheets of rain he could see the light bar on the roof, the five-pointed sheriff’s star on the door.

Martinez hesitated. Were the cops coming for him? He could think of no other reason for them to be here. Under another lightning flash he held his horse in check and waited until the squad car drew near. He saw Kerney’s face through the windshield, saw him curling his forefinger at him in a come-here gesture, and the thought of going to jail again made him bolt. Getting arrested and locked up on a DWI for one night had been bad enough. He spurred his horse toward Granite Pass.

Behind him he heard the sound of the squad car in pursuit. The hard rain beat against the packed earth, pooling and running into the draw that led to the pass. Martinez pushed his mount into the draw, forced it up an incline, and clattered it into the rocky canyon mouth. The sound of the engine receded and he turned in the saddle. The squad car stood snout up on the lip of the draw, wheels spinning, digging to gain traction. But behind the car, riding Pruitt’s dapple gray, came Kerney, head down, low in the saddle, at a full gallop.

Martinez gave his horse free rein. Rainwater gushed down the cliff face, submerging the narrow trail. The horse stumbled on a rock, pitched, recovered, and wheeled into a mesquite that sent it spinning. Martinez clamped tight with his knees, kept pressure off the bit, and let it come to a stop. Twenty feet down the trail Kerney sat watching him on Pruitt’s soaked and dirty dapple gray.

“Can you hear me?” Kerney called out over the roar of the storm.

“I can,” Martinez yelled back, blinking hard to keep the hammering rain out of his eyes.

“Do you have a weapon?”

Martinez raised his hands to show that he did not.

“Would you like to stay out of jail?” Kerney asked.

“What do I have to do?”

“Let’s get out of this storm and we’ll talk,” Kerney said.

Martinez nodded and approached. “I didn’t steal my saddle.”

“Of course you did,” Kerney replied with an easy smile. “But if you cooperate, that saddle may buy you your freedom.”

With the saddle in the trunk of the unit and Martinez cuffed and behind the cage in the backseat, Leo and Kerney returned to Lordsburg. The storm had passed, leaving behind a misty drizzle under a low sky, the sweet smell of moist air, and standing water in the streets.

Kerney’s attempts to draw Martinez out during the ride were met with stubborn silence.

“I told you I didn’t steal the saddle,” Martinez said as they pulled to a stop at the Sheriff’s Department near the courthouse.

Kerney glanced over the front seat at Martinez. “Then why did you run?”

“Because I don’t like jails. Are you charging me with a crime?”

“Right now, we just need to gather some facts,” Kerney answered. “If you cooperate, it shouldn’t take long. Maybe you bought the saddle because it was too good a deal to pass up. Maybe you didn’t actually know it was stolen, but in the back of your mind you wondered if it might have been.”

“You said that I stole it.”

Kerney got out and opened the door to the backseat. “Because you ran. It made you look guilty as hell.”

Martinez stepped onto the pavement. “Like I told you, I got scared about going to jail.”

Kerney uncuffed him. “That’s perfectly understandable.”

Inside, Leo guided them to a cramped, tiny room used for interviews and interrogations. It contained an old video camera on a tripod, a narrow table, two metal folding chairs, and a half-dozen sealed cardboard file boxes stacked in a corner. From the dust on the table it was clear the room hadn’t been used for its intended purpose in a long time.

Kerney pulled out a chair. “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Martinez. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Where are you going?”

“We’ve got to log the saddle into evidence. First things first. Would you like some coffee?”

Martinez nodded.

Kerney closed the door and went looking for Leo, who was in his office with the saddle on his desk. “He wants coffee.”

“I’ll have it brought in,” Leo said. “You gave him a ready-made out.”

“Deliberately. He’s not going to admit guilt easily. I want him to feel free to tell me his story. How quickly can you run a financial history on him?”

“It’s in the works.” Leo picked up the phone and asked his secretary to take Martinez a cup of coffee.

“I’ll start without it,” Kerney said. “Get me what you can as soon as it comes in.”

Martinez looked a bit more relaxed when Kerney returned to the interview room. He had his legs stretched out under the table and a mug of coffee in hand.

Kerney sat back in his chair and smiled. “Tell me how the saddle came into your possession.”

Martinez nodded, took a sip of coffee, and put the mug on the table. “I bought it off a guy in Las Vegas last December. He’d had a bad run at the tables and needed the money.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“In a diner off the strip. The guy came up to me at my table and asked if I’d be interested in a great deal. Took me outside to the parking lot and showed me the saddle. I bought it on the spot.”

“How much did you pay for it?”

“A thousand.”

“That’s a lot of money to be carrying around.”

“I got lucky at the craps tables.”

“Who was the guy?”

“Just another cowboy in town for the pro rodeo finals. He said he was from Utah. I don’t remember his name.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Tall, maybe your size but younger.” Martinez paused and thought for a long moment. “Oh, yeah, he had a crooked nose. You need to look for a tall man with a crooked nose.”

“What kind of vehicle was he driving?”

“I think it was a Dodge truck. Extended cab. He had the saddle in the backseat.”

“That’s helpful information. Do you know if he was competing in the rodeo? If so, that could narrow our search.”

Martinez shook his head and reached for the mug. “He didn’t look like a contestant.”

“Was anyone with you at the diner who saw the man?”

Martinez tensed his shoulders, pulled his hand back from the mug, and gave Kerney a hard look. “No. Why didn’t you ask me all these questions at the corral when you made such a big deal out of admiring my saddle?”

Kerney smiled reassuringly. “I had no reason to question you then, Mr. Martinez.”

“Yeah, but that didn’t stop you from thinking I was some sort of criminal because I’ve got a custom-made saddle.”

“If you had told me all this at the ranch instead of trying to flee, we could have avoided inconveniencing you.”

Martinez drained his coffee and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. “You cops always think the worst of people.”

“Unfortunately, that’s often the case. I’ve a few more questions about the truck the man was driving. Whatever you can recall could help us find him.”

Martinez said the truck was black in color. He said it had a chrome rear bumper. He said the truck had a diesel engine. He recalled hearing it when the cowboy drove away.

Kerney wrote it all down.

Leo stepped into the room, gave Kerney a folder, and left. Kerney scanned the information. Martinez owned a manufactured home on an acre of land in Hachita that he’d bought outright over a year ago, and was making monthly payments on a top-of-the-line new four-wheel-drive pickup truck. He had two bank cards and a gasoline credit card, and the monthly transaction records showed that he paid the balances in full regularly.