“No, Dad, I don’t want to make any extra money driving a tractor all over the countryside.  No thanks.”  He always called to see if I was available to drive a tractor for him, which in turn, helped pay my bills.  But, I was in no mood to drive a tractor and listen to an AM radio all afternoon.  No thank you.

“No, son, I didn’t call about that,” he said with a small, but noticeable sliver of hurt in his voice.  He enjoyed having me come down from time to time to help him out.  And so did Mom. 

“Son,” his voice got quieter, “I need to ask for your help on a more serious matter.”

“Dad, I already told you to ask Chris to be the executor of your will.  He’s the business major.  Not me,” I replied with a bit of impatience.  He always did this to me.  Calling me to see if I would oversee their will.  As if they were going to bite the dust just any day now.  I didn’t want the responsibility for crying out loud.

“Son...”

“No, Dad.”

“Son, would you just shut-up and listen for a minute,” he paused to catch his breath.  I could tell this was going to be good.  “Boy, can’t I get in a word edge-wise?” he barked.

I shut my mouth and listened.

“I know this may come as a surprise to you, son.  Believe me, it’s quite a shock to me, but I need your help.  The kind that you get paid for,” he dwindled and put on that last part as if embarrassed.  I just wasn’t too sure what he was talking about.

“You know what I mean, don’t ya?” he asked.

“Actually, no.  You’re kind of vague, Dad.  What are you talking about?  What kind of help?”

“Holy Moses!  You’d think you were some private dick, or something, Vince!  My stars!  What do you think I’m trying to say?” he barked out. 

“No idea.” I wasn’t in the mood for playing along with him.  I wanted him to spell it out.  Make him tell me just what he wanted from his “boy”.  And, I was having a bit of fun, too, making him flustered.

And then he said it.  And the second miracle of the day occurred.

“I want to hire you for a case.”

 

Although I was a bit skeptical at first about my own father hiring me for a case, I became convinced after he explained the situation.  Someone down in their part of the country was stealing cattle.  No just one or two here and there, but a bunch of them.  Dad said the last count was thirty-four stolen off of five different ranchers.  There was always the chance of a few cattle roaming off and getting lost, but thirty-four was way too many for that theory.  If there were that many gone, it meant only one thing.  Cattle rustlers.  I chuckled at myself for having thought it, but in all reality, it wasn’t a laughing matter.  Cattle rustling is something you read about in a history book, or see in a John Ford movie.  Right?  Wrong.

Having my Dad call and ask me to take a case for him was weird.  That was an understatement.  It was bizarre.

So, I thought it was strange that he should call and ask me to come down and help out some of his cronies.  Very proud cronies, I might add, who probably didn’t want any outside help and thought the sheriff was doing a fine job.  Dad, thinking thirty-four missing head of livestock too much, wanted me to do some peaking around.  And, a case is a case, even if it is your father hiring you.  So, I agreed to come down and have look-see.

I shifted into fourth and slowed down as I came up behind a black Cad doing forty-five.  Slow poke.  I punched it hard and shifted back into fifth as I shot past the shiny Cad, which now looked like it was sitting still on the highway.  The driver stared at me as if I was completely out of my mind, but I didn’t let it bother me much.

The sultry air washed over my face and chest as I sped down the highway, and it made me think of Hong Kong.  When I was in the Nav, I was stationed in Japan.  Every once in a while we’d float down to Hong Kong for some training mission, or some whatnot.  I never really knew just exactly what we were doing.  Anyway, when we went down there, all the sailors got to go to shore.  Some for dope, or women, or booze. 

And, let me tell you brother, they had it all. 

In the Nav we visited all kinds of places.  Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, and the Philippines to name a few.  And if there is one thing I miss about the Nav, it’s all the travel to all those cool places.  Don’t misunderstand, I threw a party when I got released.  Three years was enough and I was ready to come home.

I had my choice of anywhere I wanted to go.  Just say the word and the Nav would have flown me there.  I had my choice.  Anywhere I wanted to go to settle down and start a regular, non-military life.  Anywhere in the world, mind you.  And I chose to come back home to Oklahoma. 

I found my turn-off and pulled hard on the wheel and turned west down the old gravel road toward the place I was to meet Dad.  He thought that it would be a good idea to meet at Harold Vernon’s place instead of meeting at home and then going out.  I agreed. 

After a couple of miles down the gravel road, I turned south and headed for the Vernon place.  All I could remember about Harold Vernon was that he had a mean Collie and drank coffee with my Dad and the rest of the “farmer’s association” down at Love’s.  The Temple of Honesty.  That’s what I called it.  I shifted my truck into third to take the bumps and holes better.

I wiped the grin off my face and pulled over to the side of the road where my Dad’s truck was parked.  He was over at the barbed wire fence chewing the fat with some old man, probably Vernon, and he pointing every-which-way.  When I pulled up behind his truck, he swung around and crossed his arms like he used to do when I stayed out past my curfew.  Old habits don’t die.

“Well, it’s about time you got here.  I was about to call the highway patrol to see if you crashed on the side of the road somewhere,” he said with all smiles as I crossed the ditch and made my way up to them.  He grabbed my hand and pumped it hard a couple of times as if he were trying to squeeze milk from my fingers.  I shook back just as hard and grinned at him.  Unlike so many people that I knew, I actually cared for my old man.  Now, he would never hear me say that to his face, but I do.

“Harold,” he motioned with his free hand, “you remember my boy, Vince, don’t ya?”

“Sure.  I remember him.  He used to shoot my old Collie pup in the butt with his Daisy,” Harold said with a bit of gravel in his voice.  He was a large man and wore Osh Kosh overalls.  He looked like he stepped right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

“But, heck, Gib,” he continued with a smile on his face, “he was only knee-high to a jack-rabbit back then.  What happened to him?”  They both laughed as loud as they could at that.  Two old farm boys shooting the bull at my expense.

I reached out and took his hand.  He squeezed almost as hard as my father.  His face was red from laughing and I met his eyes for the first time.  In them I saw fear and embarrassment and damaged pride.  Although he was laughing and chuckling, I could see the resentment he was feeling about his stolen cattle.  They weren’t just property stolen to this man, they were a way of life erased from his possession.  He wasn’t a man who lived from 9 to 5.  Harold Vernon was a man who had a livelihood that had been trampled on with the theft of his animals.

“All right, Mr. Vernon,” I said after he released my throbbing hand, “what do you have to show me?” 

 

Chapter Two

We walked through the metal gate that was swaying in the southern breeze and headed to the spot Harold Vernon wanted me to see.  The creaking noises the gate made brought a quick smile to my face as I began to enjoy being back at the old home place.  I wish it could have been under better circumstances, and I suppose Harold and Dad felt the same.

Harold tromped in his heavy work-boots to an area of his pasture located next to the road and under a cottonwood that had seen better days.

“Looks like that was where they was,” he threw out in an off-handed manner.  It bothered him, all right, but he was one of those men that never showed any type of discomfort.  “Looks like to me anyway.”

I looked down at where he had his eyes planted saw an area covered in cattle tracks and cow manure.  The grass was torn up where they had trampled and the tracks lay on top of one another making it look like a stampede had taken place.  Dad stood over by the cottonwood watching and taking notes on how well his son handled the situation.

“How many you’d lose, Mr. Vernon?  Eight head?”

“Seven,” he sighed with his face still staring at the scarred ground.

I shuffled around the area the cattle had trodden down and marked how big it was.  Fifteen by twenty.  In addition to the cattle tracks and mashed grass, I also spotted scraps of alfalfa hay strewn all over the place.

“They must have fed them to keep them calm while they backed the trailer up,” I mumbled before I realized it.

“Yeah.  We figure,” Harold paused to collect his thoughts as he walked over to where I was, “we figure they led them up and put them in some sort of corral.”

“Oh, yeah,” I pointed to the ground, “you can see the marks the panels made.”

Whoever these rustlers were, they knew how to handle cattle.  I know it probably doesn’t take a genius to steal cattle, but I could tell that they had been around a cow or two before.  They would set up some metal panels against a fence and then find the animals they wanted.  Alfalfa hay was used to lure a few head up to the fence.  Cattle are like a mule with a carrot dangling in front of his face when it comes to alfalfa hay.  They will follow it until they get it.  When you round up cattle, you can’t just throw up your arms and yell.  If you do that, the animals will run for the hills.  And the tracks indicated that the mini-herd was relatively calm and didn’t try to go anywhere.  There were no big scuffs or cuts in the earth.  Usually cattle tracks are scattered everywhere and dirt smeared all over the place if the cattle are in a small area and spooked and want out. 

These cattle thieves knew how to handle the animals they stole.  It didn’t seem like much to go on, but it was something.

“What ya make of it?” Harold’s voice seemed shaky and hesitant.

“They knew what they were doing.  That’s for sure.”

“Yeah,” Dad chimed in for the first time, “or they wouldn’t have gotten away with Harry’s cattle.”  They both chuckled at that and looked my way expecting me to join in.  I was still too busy looking at the ground for any other clues.

“I don’t know if there’s enough here for ya to go on,” Harold added while I still shuffled from one end of the trampled area to the other.

“You never know,” I mumbled.  I was getting a bad habit of that.  Mumbling.  But, I was too busy for serious farmer’s chitchat.  If I got to shooting the bull with these two men of the land, I wouldn’t get to leave until dark.  I had seen these guys flap their jaws before, and let me tell you, it was quite a sight.  Down here, jawing is considered an Olympic sport.

“You looking for something in particular, son?” Dad piped in with his “particular” sounding something like “puh-tick-ler”.  I always thought the way my Dad talked was so funny.  His vernacular was thick and placed him as someone from the “sticks.”

“I’ll let you know when I find it,” I answered without lifting my head up to face his sarcastic grin.

There was something in particular that I was looking for as I ran my eyes along the scarred grass and dirt.  I checked for footprints.

As I reached the area where the trailer was parked I noticed a faint scuff in a chunk of half-dried manure.

“Hello,” I muttered as I bent down to examine the chunk of cow manure.

Harold and Dad got a kick out of that.  Oh, yeah.  They thought me looking at a piece of manure for a clue was great.

“Now, son, don’t tell me one of them guys that took off with Harry’s cattle left his fingerprints in that there patty,” he barked out and started to chuckle.

“Ah, now, you don’t have to give him a hard time,” Harry said between chuckles.  I tried to pay no attention.  This man had some valuable livestock stolen and he still had time to joke about it.  What a great attitude.

Mashed into the dried chunk was a piece of a word.  It was hard to make out, but I felt the urge to find out.  I wasn’t too sure I would ever run into the owner of these boots, but it couldn’t hurt anything to find out.  I used my pocketknife to lift the edge of the patty, as my old man calls it, and lifted it off the ground to get a better look.  That just about brought the house down for Harold and Dad.  They started laughing uncontrollably and were leaning on each other for support.

“Ah, come on now, son, don’t do that,” Dad laughed out with his arm wrapped around his friend.  “I thought your mother taught you better than to play with lumps of manure.”

The letters in the manure were scrunched and hard to read, but they were still pressed enough to make out.  Wolverine.

I strode over to the fence and looked at the road.  Nope.  No hopes of making out anything on these dirt roads.  I would have to find a lead somewhere else.

“How much I owe ya?” Harry had come over to the fence and was reaching in his wallet.

“No.  I told you Harry, this was my deal.  I hired him to come out here.  I’ll pay him,” Dad intervened and came over to stop Harry.  An added aroma surrounded him.

“Don’t argue with me, Gib.  I was the one who had the cattle stolen.  I’ll pay the boy what I owe him.”  Again with “the boy” bit.

“Put that away, Harry.  Don’t make me have to whip you out here in broad daylight.”  His “whip” sounded like “whup”.

“Fellas,” I tried to interject, which was not a bright idea.  “Fellas, fellas, hey!”

“Son, tell him I hired you, all right,” Dad ordered.

“Boy, tell him them cattle were mine and they are my responsibility,” Harry ordered.  Two old farmers expecting to get their way.  As always.

“Look, guys,” I grunted while I crossed the barbwire fence and headed toward my truck.  “It’s true that Dad hired me...”

“See.”

“But,” I continued, “I haven’t done anything to get paid for yet.  I don’t have the slightest about who took off with your cattle.”  I paused and let them mumble at one another under their breath.  It almost made me crack up. 

“I do know that one of the men had on Wolverine work boots, but that doesn’t narrow it down all that much.”

“All right.  I agree,” Dad added.

“Now, Gib...”

“Nope.  You done heard the boy.  I hired him.  I’ll pay him.  You and me can square up later.”

Harry Vernon, knowing he was finally defeated, shrugged his shoulders and slung his leg over the fence.

“Don’t think that if you don’t find these men, Vince, that I’ll be all bent out of shape,” Harry said with a newfound softness.  He came over and shook my hand hard.  I felt my hand groan in agony again.  “I appreciate you driving down from the city to take a look.”

“No problem.”

He turned and looked at Dad who was making his way across the barbwire and down to where we stood.

“You got a good boy here, Gib.”

“I wonder sometimes,” he blurted out with his characteristic abruptness, but I could see a faint sparkle in his eyes.

“Come on, stinky, let’s go to the house and tell Mom you been playing with the wrong end of a steer again,” I said with a wide grin and hopped in my truck and headed for my folk’s place.

 

 

Chapter Three

I was driving down the gravel road as fast as my truck could take me and I let my gaze drift along the roadside.  Years ago I had taken part in revelry at tailgate parties that were thrown in some of these pastures and patches of land.  That was the one great thing about high school and living out on a farm, you never had to pay cover to have a great time.

I shifted the S-10 into fourth and thought how strange it was to see a man, who had valuable animals stolen from him, act so calm about the whole situation.  I wasn’t suspicious of him.  It was just the country mentality.  If you can’t change it, why bother with whining and moaning about it?  Too bad it didn’t work with me.  If I was in his place, I would’ve loaded my shotgun and started patrolling the area.  But, that was me.

It was really weird to be on a cattle-rustling case.  I mean, these type of crimes took place in the Old West, right?  But modern-day rustlers were a bit more sophisticated. Not like the bandits of old with guns blazing, but with cold and careful calculation that made me a little uneasy.

Who in the world would go around stealing cattle?  Maybe rent was due and someone needed some fast cash.  Doubt it.  From what little I saw at the sight where Harry’s cattle were stolen, I gathered that these men had quite a talent for taking off with other people’s livestock.  They probably had a lot of practice at it.  They just dropped the gate and backed the trailer in and got to loading.  But, who?  Out-of-towners who just happen to know where all the good beef is to steal?  Could be.  At this point I was clueless. 

Well, not exactly.  I did have the print in the manure patty. 

And on top of everything else, I was confused on why these guys, if they were guys, were staying in one area and picking it clean.  Maybe they knew that these folks wouldn’t raise too much of a fuss.  A few stolen cattle was an aggravation.  It was just the way things went sometimes and they dealt with it the best way they knew how.  And that usually meant not raising a stink about it.  If you had theft insurance, just file the claim and wait for the check.

I jerked my truck hard to the right and ignored the wheezing sound the engine made and pulled into Mom and Dad’s driveway.  It had been a while since I had been back for a visit.  It was still good to be back at the old farmhouse.

They had bricked it a few years back and had the driveway paved with asphalt.  Boy, it must be rough being a poor dirt farmer with the only asphalt road in a ten-mile radius.  I killed the truck and headed up the steps that led to the front porch.  Before I could reach the storm door and let myself in, I was met by my mother who had a glass of iced tea in her hand.  She was all smiles. 

“Hello, son,” she said as she handed me the glass of tea and gave me quick hug all at the same time.

“Hey, Mom,” I answered and took a slug from the tea-glass.  That’s one thing I did miss about visiting home.  Mom’s iced tea.  Never too sweet or strong, and always, always cold enough to chatter your teeth.  “How’s farm life?”

She smiled her quirky grin and showed her snow-white choppers.  “Same as it ever was,” she grabbed me by the arm and led me into the house.  “Where’s your father?”

“Ah, he should be right behind me.”  I took another long swig from the glass.

“Come on in and have a sit,” she let her regionalism slip and country twang flowed out of her mouth.  She rarely let that happen because of her degree in Speech Pathology that she got years ago, but from time to time she slipped.  It was what made her who she was.  It was great.

I sat down on the leather couch and sipped the remains of the tea and handed her the glass.

“Divine as always.”

“Thank you, son.”

She walked off into the kitchen and put the glass into her dishwasher and shut the lid with a mighty slam.

“Do you think you can help out with this business?” she asked with a note of hesitation.

“I’m not sure yet,” I replied, “maybe.”

“Well, I hope so.  Your father hasn’t slept a wink for the past three nights.  He’s worried sick about it.”  She crinkled her stubby nose like she always does when she’s worried and sat down on the divan across from me.  My mother has always had an air of earthy elegance about her.  She is not leathered or worn or scarred from all her years out on the farm.  Not at all.  She has assimilated herself quite nicely to all the dirt, excuse me, soil, vegetation, and loads of manure that accompany any up-to-date farm outfit.  I admired her for it.  She had this great degree and natural ability to teach, but she chose to be a farmer’s wife.  Not an easy task, I might remind you.  She had hauled, loaded, shoveled, corralled, sweated, and persevered better than the rest of us.

We sat in silence.  We had a habit of doing this in times past when nothing was there to talk about.  It never bothered either one of us.  I hated folks who felt the need, the burning desire, to fill every living minute with words.  And after a while you just run out of things to talk about.

I decided to break the edgy quietness.  “Mom.  Does he have any possible clue as to who might be doing this?”

She chuckled and crossed her legs on the couch.  “You know your father.  He can’t imagine this taking place at all, much less in his own backyard.”  She took a breath and stared straight at me.  “This thing has shaken him a little, Vince.  He has never had a care in his life.  Oh, except for changing prices in the markets and the occasional dead cow, but those don’t count.  Your father has lived loose and carefree ever since I’ve known him.  And now, he actually doesn’t know what to do.”  She smiled distantly and started rubbing the back of her hand.  You could feel the frustration in the room.  I didn’t like any more than she did.  I mean, this was stupid.  People running around in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere stealing other people’s property.  No, more than that.  Their way of life.  It didn’t make me mad, not really.  It made me feel sorry for the poor slobs who were out doing something so stupid, and yet so damaging.

“It must have been a big thing for him to call me.”

“Probably harder than both of us will ever know.”  She laughed her scrunched her face up.  She loved dad a lot.  That was easy to tell.  But, she, like the rest of his family, didn’t know very much about him at all.  Oh, we knew all the basics.  We never got to see below the layers of age, dust, and experience that had coated him over the years.  But, that was okay.  I didn’t mind so much. 

“I take it the sheriff is not up to snuff these days?” I asked trying to break the heaviness looming in the room.

“Donald?  Vince, the man is a doofus,” she burst out.  “He has no sense of anything other than the dinner bell.  The man shouldn’t be in the office, but you know how the old ‘good buddy’ system works.”

“Yeah.”

“These folks around here could care less about Donald’s qualifications and abilities.  They have known him for a hundred years and that is good enough for anyone around here.  Including your father.”  By the way she talked about their beloved sheriff I was certain she and dad had discussed him.  One thing about my mom.  She isn’t afraid to speak her mind.

“What’s the problem.  He getting to old?”

“That.  And a hundred other things.”  By this time she was huffing and puffing from her temper-tantrum, if that’s what you can call it.  She was just blowing off built up steam.  She was upset about this whole business.

“Why me?”

“What?”  I had apparently interrupted her train of thought.

“Why call me in on it?  I mean, I know dad is concerned, but why call in his no-good rebel son in on it,” I stated with a nasty grin pasted on my face.

“He never said.  Naturally.  But, I can guess.”

“I can too..”

“Maybe you can’t.  He never comes out and says it, but I hear.  I’ve learned to listen to him in the right places.  He was really happy, and I could say even proud, when you joined the Navy.  You were doing something he had always wanted to do, but never could.  You know the trouble he had with his ears?”

“Yes.  I think I’ve heard it a thousand times...”

“Yes.  Well.  He thought you were doing a good thing by joining one of the armed services.  And, naturally, when you got out...”

I cut her off.  “He thought I’d come running back to the farm, right?”  I said with a bitter lump in my throat.

She grinned.  “No.  He knew you didn’t want this.  And believe me, to do this you have to want it more than anything else in the world.  But, when you went into this private eye thing, he didn’t know what to think anymore.”

“He thinks I’m nuts.”  It wasn’t a question.

“No.  Not really.  He knows what your capable of.”  She rubbed the back of her hand again and jerked her head toward the back door.  I did the same.  Dad’s one-ton was blazing into the driveway in all it’s roaring glory.  He’d had the thing for fifteen years and had never had the thing worked on.

My mother got up and went to the fridge and dug out the pitcher of tea she had stashed.  She stuffed a glass with ice and poured in her magical concoction.  She looked back at me with her eyes smiling.  Supportive to the last.

“He called you, Vince, because he needs your help.”  She turned away and awaited the bull to enter his home.

The door flew open and he tromped in with his heavy boots on sounding the way.  This had to be a daily ritual I didn’t quite understand.  She waited in the kitchen and patiently waited for him to fling his boots off in the utility room, which is connected to the kitchen, and came barging into the living area of the house.

“Off,” she ordered.

“What?”  Playing stupid as always.  He grabbed the slimed shirt and pulled it out for her to see up close.  “You don’t mean this, do ya?” he asked all innocent.  A playful grin was plastered on his face.

“Off, Gib and don’t make me tell you twice,” she added with her own sinister grin.

“I told him to quit messing with the wrong end of that steer, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” I belted out to get in on the light-hearted fun.

“Go,” she ordered again as he disappeared into the back to change his shirt.  Mom went over to the sink and quietly poured him a glass of tea.  This was the side of my parents that I had come to enjoy and respect over the years.

He reappeared with a long-sleeve denim shirt on with that same ugly smile spread on his face like clotted cream.  How he could work in the heat with that heavy shirt on was beyond me.

“Hey, sweetness.  What’s this?”  He took the iced tea as if he didn’t know what it was and kissed her on the cheek.  It was sickeningly sweet.  An adjective I wouldn’t place on the old man.  He slurped down half of it and came charging into the living room where I was.  “Now, gosh-dang it, Sara, are you keeping tabs on what this boy here is eating and drinking in your house?”  He says “gosh-dang” because he isn’t allowed to say anything much stronger than that.  He has slipped a few times in the past and I thought he was going to have to sleep in the barn that night.  “He ain’t under our roof no more, so you keep a tab of what he eats around here.”  He said it all with a straight face, but we both knew this was his brand of humor. 

“Don’t you worry,” I told him as he gulped the last of his precious brew.  “I’ll pay you before I leave.”

“You bet you will.”  He sat down in his La-Z-Boy and belched at the ceiling as if it were some enemy approaching.  He laughed and chuckled and snorted as he leaned back in his chair.  He held up his empty glass, which mom snatched and took to the dishwasher.

“What do you think?”  Okay.  Here we go.  Down to business.

“I don’t know.  I really don’t.”

“That’s what I thought,” he barked and laughed as loud as he could.

“I’ll need to dig around some more.  See what I can find.”

His face fell a few centimeters and graveness filled his eyes.  “You don’t think there’s much chance, do you?”

I wanted to scream yes as loud as I could and bolt out the door to capture the men who had stolen these animals, but I knew I wasn’t close.  Not yet.  He chewed the inside of his mouth and waited for a reply.

“I’ll do what I can...”

“Good enough for me,” he said interrupting me.  He’s good at that.  Interrupting.

“I hope so,” I muttered under my breath.

“Anything you do will be better than our sheriff.  Lazy turd,” he turned to mom quickly and blushed.  “Er...bum.”

“I thought you were good pals with the mighty sheriff?” I asked with a smirk on my face.

“Yes, Gib.  I thought so too,” mom chimed in.

“Well, I am.  But, that doesn’t mean I can’t call him a lazy...bum when I know he is.”  He gruffed and leaned back in his chair like some king who had said the final word.

“I’ve known Donald a long time, but he is just getting to old and too tired for his job.”

“Has he looked into this much at all?” I inquired.

“A little.”

“Uh-huh,” this from my mother.

“He has, Sara.  Maybe not like he should.  Everybody knows that, but he has still poked into it a little.”

“Leon.”  Uh-oh.  She called him Leon.  I wanted to crawl into the deepest and darkest corner of the house.  Nobody called dad Leon.  I mean nobody.  It was Gib to everyone who knew him.  Except mom.  She called him Leon from time to time.  When she called him Leon, you knew she had something pretty powerful on her mind.  She said it like he was some toddler still running in the house when he knew better.

“Now, Sara.  He can’t help it if he’s a bit slow,” he said timidly. 

“Leon Gibson that man wouldn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground and you know it.  And so does everybody else around here.”  My jaw fell to the floor.  So did dad’s.  Mom never said butt.  No way.  I got slapped hard if I ever uttered that word in her house when I was young.  Now she had used it as well as any redneck, farmer, rancher, or otherwise with great skill and fluency.  I was shocked.

“Sara...”

“The man is incompetent, Leon.  Admit it.”

“I already did.  That’s why Vince is here.  To help out, if he can.  Right?”  He looked at me like a drowning sailor searching for his lifesaver. 

“Right,” I said.

“Next election we’ll put him out to pasture.  I promise,” he said it with the conviction of a condemned man on the gallows.

“You said that last time.”

This banter would go on until the end of time.  I didn’t want to stay for the finish.  I got up and walked into the kitchen and poured myself another glass of mom’s brew.

“That’s seventy-five cents, mom.  Better write that down,” I said with a twinkle in my eye.

Dad jerked around in his chair and winked.  “That’s right, sonny boy.  No free room and board anymore around here.  This ain’t one of them bed and breakfast things.” 

I chuckled and put the glass in the sink.  I could sit and talk and drink tea all day, but I wasn’t here for that.  I had to remind myself I was on a case.

“Where are you going now?” he asked with a growl.

“I thought you could help out with that.”

“Who do you need to see, son?” mom asked this time.

“I guess I ought to talk to some of the other cattle owners.  Any of them that saw anything.”  If I talked to all of them, I’d be at it all afternoon.  No.  I just needed to see the ones that might know something more.

“Who would that be, Gib?” mom inquired of dad.

He rubbed his face and leaned back in his chair.  He pulled the handle and the leg support flew out.  It was almost nap time for him.  His siesta, as he called it.

“I’d go see Dustin Hamilton, Vince.  You remember where his place is, right?”

“Yeah.  He know anything?”

“Might.  I’ll have your mother call over before you get there.”  He yawned and stretched to the sky.  “I need a quick siesta.”  And he was out like a light.

I tiptoed to the door with mother on my heels.