Buck Fever (Blanco County Mysteries) (17 page)

PHIL COLBY, BREATHING heavily, watched the Cadillac's receding taillights from his hiding spot. He hadn't expected any traffic on the ranch at this hour, but he figured it could be a hunter arriving late. Not likely, though, the more he thought about it. Especially in a Cadillac. And now they weren't even going to the ranch house, they were changing course and taking the road that led down to the lower pasture by the river. He wished he could have seen inside the car, but it was too dark.

If Marlin was actually being held captive somewhere on the ranch, Colby knew he still had the element of surprise on his side. The occupants of the Cadillac apparently had not spotted him hiding in the tall grass, and his truck was parked safely two hundred yards past the ranch entrance in Thomas Stovall's driveway.

Under the cloak of darkness, Colby slowly approached the ranch house. As the guest house came into view, Colby saw twenty or thirty vehicles parked neatly along the driveway. So the hunters were all here, after all, ready for opening day. That made Colby somewhat anxious. Would Swank really invite the state's top power brokers to his ranch while he was holding a man hostage? That would be outrageous, even for Swank. The hunters would be swarming over every square inch of the ranch in the morning, and Swank was too smart to think that Marlin wouldn't be found. Colby's doubts started to get the best of him and he began to turn around. But, in his mind, he replayed Bobby Garza's message on Marlin's answering machine. He remembered Marlin's letter to the attorney general. And he pressed forward.

Colby stopped a hundred yards away from the main house and listened. All was quiet. He could see the front wraparound porch of the guest house. It was unoccupied except for the moths flittering around the porch light. Colby felt safe moving among the trees around the house toward the barn. He knew that Swank owned no dogs. He also knew which floodlights, mounted on posts at random around the house, were triggered by motion, so he was able to carefully avoid them.

The metal barn loomed in the darkness several hundred yards behind the house. Colby decided it was as good a place as any to look for Marlin. He followed the curving road to the barn, walking quietly in the limestone dust.

The barn was well built, but not completely weatherproof, and Colby could tell from the dark seams that no lights were on inside. He put his ear against the cool sheet metal of the barn door and listened. Nothing. Colby took a deep breath and began to roll the large, heavy door open. To Colby, the noise equaled that of a freight train chugging along the tracks. So much for stealth. He opened the door wide enough to slip through and switched the lights on. The interior was just as he remembered…large, gated stalls, hay stacked against one wall, various ranching implements hanging from roof joists. And nobody to be seen. Staring into the wide expanse of the barn made Colby suddenly self-conscious, and he switched the light off. He pulled a small flashlight from his back pocket and quickly checked each stall. Empty, just as he expected.

“John?” he whispered into the darkness. He waited a moment and then retreated from the barn, leaving the door open.

Colby circled the barn and walked over to a nearby fence-line. A ten-foot fence. Colby knew this was the five-acre pasture where Swank kept his newest prize bucks. He scanned the sparsely treed pasture and saw nothing. The deer were probably huddled on the back side of the pasture, as far away from human activity as they could get.

Colby squatted on his heels for a few minutes, dejected. He cursed himself for not having a better plan.…Hell, he didn't have any plan at all. What was he supposed to do, just walk right up to Swank's front door and knock? Demand to see Marlin? Right about now, that seemed to be his only option, and it was a lousy one.

Then Phil Colby had one of those glorious moments—one of his college professors used to refer to it as “an epiphany”—when the truth suddenly presents itself of its own accord. But this wasn't just one epiphany, it was two.

First, if Swank was keeping drug-packing deer on his property, they were likely contained in a small area…a pasture just like the one in front of him. The deer couldn't be allowed to roam the ranch freely because they might never be seen again. Big bucks are the most elusive animals in the woods. Colby recalled one wildlife study where a hunter was turned loose on a high-fenced hundred-acre pasture with one lone buck. Over an entire hunting season, the hunter managed to get one fleeting glimpse of the buck. He never got a shot. If there were deer in this pasture, their bellies probably contained a lot more than corn.

Second, there were at least a dozen feed shacks and other assorted outbuildings within two hundred yards of the barn. But keeping a man hostage in any of those would be just plain stupid. As Colby knew intimately, there was only one building on the ranch remote enough to serve as a makeshift prison. The old rock cabin down by the river. Where the Cadillac was headed.

Marlin peered through the crack of the door frame again and saw that the fire was almost out. Surely Luis was dozing by now, otherwise he would have stoked the fire. After all, it was getting cooler, now down in the low fifties.

He turned to Becky. “You up for this? We don't have to try it if you don't want to.”

She shook her head. “Let's bust out of this dump.”

He smiled and walked over to her, put his arms around her. “Remember…when he opens the door, just stand there and look gorgeous.”

She gave him a coy look, an expression that would have been arousing under any other circumstances. “I think I can handle that.”

Marlin tilted his head, thinking, for a second, that he heard an engine…far away, on the bluffs above the river. But the rushing water made too much noise and he couldn't be sure.

He looked back at Becky. “Well, then…”

Julio was almost as mad at himself as he was at Oscar. He'd had about enough of his boss, who was really nothing more than a foul-mouthed young punk. Over the years, Oscar had never shown Julio the proper respect. All he ever did was criticize, like now. Was it Julio's fault that the Cadillac was a
pedaso de mierda
and couldn't make it out of the mud?

Julio gunned the engine again to drown out Oscar's latest string of obscenities…but the Cadillac remained firmly entrenched.

“Perro malparido!
Wha’ the fock were you theenking?” Oscar asked. “I tole you to go around the focking mod!”

Julio gritted his teeth. “There are large rocks on either side. This was our only path.” He revved the engine again to no avail.

“Coño de tu madre!”
Oscar turned and looked at the hulking figure in the backseat. “Tyler! Geet us out of this focking mod.”

Tyler nodded and climbed out of the car. Julio watched in the mirror as Tyler walked to the rear, leaned down, and placed both hands firmly on the vertical slope of the trunk. Julio floored it and a rooster tail of thick brown sludge machine-gunned up Tyler's body. Oscar and Julio could hear him cussing as he stepped away from the vehicle. “Keep pushing!” Oscar yelled. “You are already feelthy, so what does it matter?”

Tyler got back into position, Julio floored the pedal, and they could feel the bulky car slowly creep back onto solid ground.

Tyler hopped back into the car, still wiping mud from his torso, and they proceeded toward the winding hillside road that led down to the cabin.

Becky rapped firmly on the door. “Luis! Hey, Luis! I gotta go again.” Thirty seconds passed, then a full minute.

“He must be sleeping,” Marlin said. He pounded on the door with the ball of his fist. “Wake up, Luis! The lady needs a little privacy again.”

They heard Marlin's truck door open and shut, less than five yards from the cabin door. Marlin looked over at Becky again, reaffirming that she was well lit by the lantern she was holding. Glowing like the Statue of Liberty at night.

Marlin pressed against the wall to the left of the door frame. Moments earlier, Marlin had felt the weight of the tube-sock filled with rocks. Plenty heavy to do the Job. Amazing how many stones Becky had managed to gather on each bathroom trip. They heard the familiar sound of the board lifting out of the brackets on either side of the door…then the door swung open.

At first, Red and Billy Don sat in stunned silence, sure that the videotape they were watching was some kind of joke or illusion. Finally Red said, “Good God Almighty.”

“I ain't never seen such,” Billy Don said, eyes glued to the set.

Then, a mere nanosecond later, Red realized he was staring directly at the goose that laid the golden egg! Roy Swank would pay a small fortune to get this tape back. It was the one delicious, wonderful, oh-so-fantastic opportunity Red had been waiting for all his life. Damn, here it was, right under his nose…and when he wasn't even expecting it! Yes, life was fixing to change big-time for Red O'Brien. There would be no more Milwaukee's Best when he could afford Budweiser. No more Hamburger Helper when he could afford prime rib. Hell, he'd burn his old mobile home to the ground and replace it with a shiny new double-wide! Get all new furniture, including a dinette set. Drop a new engine into the Trans Am sitting on his front lawn.

Red was overwhelmed by it all. “Turn it off, Billy Don! Turn it off!”

“Wha…?”

Red jumped to his feet and pushed the
EJECT
button on the VCR. He slid the videotape out and clutched it to his chest. This was his winning lottery ticket, and it wasn't leaving his grasp. “Go grab our things and meet me at the truck!”

“But, Red, we're supposed to stay here and…”

“Goddamn it, just do it! Hurry!”

THE DOOR OPENED all the way…and Marlin knew that Luis’ next few moves would determine whether the plan was a resounding success or a dismal failure. There was Becky, standing in the warm halo of the Coleman lantern…in her red panties, hair hanging seductively over her shoulders, breasts pushing against the confines of her recently tightened Wonderbra.

As most men would, Luis automatically took a step forward, eyes focused hungrily on the woman in front of him, the pistol all but forgotten in his hand. Then, just as Marlin had anticipated, Luis decided it was a trap and Becky was simply a decoy. So he turned quickly to face Marlin.

The game warden simply smiled at him.

That's when Becky stepped forward and swung the weighted sock from ankle height, bringing it down squarely on the crown of the Colombian's head. Luis’ knees buckled momentarily, but he didn't fall.

He did fall, however, when Marlin drove him to the ground like a tackling dummy.

Both men lay prone on the dirt floor. Marlin tried to pull himself on top of the wiry man, but Luis writhed and kicked and flailed. Marlin threw a hard right and felt the man's nose collapse under his fist. Luis squealed in anguish and seemed to find renewed strength from his pain. He managed to pull his upper body free from Marlin's grasp and started clawing at the earth. Marlin was on his knees now, arms wrapped around Luis’ thighs, as the Colombian, lying on the ground, grabbed the door frame and tried to pull himself away. He was amazingly strong. Luis freed one leg and kicked Marlin on the side of the head. Marlin slammed a big fist into the smaller man's abdomen and heard the air rush out of his lungs. Luis kicked again, catching Marlin hard on the bridge of his nose. Marlin tried to shake the dizziness he felt in his head, and Luis took advantage of this brief moment to wriggle free, jump up, and lunge for the exit.

Then, the whole room danced crazily as Becky swung the Coleman lantern and hit Luis on the shoulder. Glass shattered and the small man's shoulder was suddenly aflame. He swatted at the flames and screamed in agony, as Marlin and Becky were too astonished to do anything but watch. The fire began to crawl down the man's torso and Becky turned away in revulsion.

Marlin moved forward to help smother the flames, but Luis had something else in mind. He streaked out the door and ran downhill toward the Pedernales River.

In sparse moonlight now, Marlin felt around on the dirt floor for the gun and finally found the cool metal grip. “Grab your clothes, Becky!” he said. She was already pulling on her jeans.

He took her by the arm and they ran out the door of the cabin, only to see a big white Cadillac lurking in the moonlight twenty yards away, pointing directly at them. An instant later the headlights of the Cadillac bathed them in light.

Marlin's mind raced. The occupants of the Cadillac, by any stretch of the imagination, couldn't be anything but enemies. Marlin's cruiser was a mere twenty feet to his left, but he had no idea whether the keys were even in it. Worst of all, the cabin sat in an open clearing; the nearest woods were fifty yards away, precluding a run for cover. In this brief pause, while Marlin was trying to decide what to do next, his decision was made for him. Marlin, struggling to see past the powerful headlights, heard a car door open. And then he heard the familiar sound of a shotgun being racked. A voice—that of the beefy American—said, “Drop the gun and stay where you are.”

Bitter disappointment flooded every nook and cranny of Marlin's brain. They had been so close to freedom…and to lose it again so quickly was almost more than he could stand. He glanced over at Becky, who was now holding her blouse self-consciously over her breasts.

Marlin let the gun fall to the ground and stepped in front of Becky, shielding her from the light. “Pull your blouse on. And hold on. I promise I'll get you out of this yet.” Marlin knew it was a shallow promise. He had no idea what he was going to do. But if he had to sacrifice himself to gain her freedom, that's what he would do. “Listen, I have an idea…I'm going to make a run at the car, try to distract them…and when I do, I want you to run to your left. There's a dam over there that leads…”

“Forget it, John,” she said. “No way. They'll shoot you for sure.”

“It's the only way—”

“I won't do it.” She looked him hard in the eyes. “We'll get out of this together.”

Inside the Cadillac, Oscar was livid. Once again he had been failed by incompetent help. Oh, how he wished everyone in this world could be as trustworthy as himself!

As they had approached the cabin moments earlier, they were surprised to see the door standing open, with light emerging from the inside. Oscar had ordered Julio to coast quietly to a stop with the lights off. Seconds later, they were dumbfounded to see Luis dashing out of the cabin with his upper torso on fire. How he had managed to get himself into that kind of predicament, Oscar had no idea. Luis was nowhere to be seen now. Probably floating facedown in the river, if he had made it that far.

Tyler held the game warden and the woman at bay with the shotgun while Oscar tried to figure out his next move.

Julio, still in the driver's seat, broke his usual silence and offered his grim opinion. “We must kill them.”

“Quiet!” Oscar ordered. He needed time to think. Killing a civilian, like the man who had snapped Oscar's photo from the hedges, was one thing, but killing an American officer of the law…well, that was bound to cause serious complications. On the other hand, there was really no way around it. They had to make a clean getaway, and they couldn't allow the lawman to give them any more trouble. The girl, she would be an unfortunate bystander.

In the silence, frogs on the riverbank began a shrill chorus. It almost seemed to Oscar as if they were mocking him, urging him to make a decision.

The deer were waiting. Oscar could have the drugs back in his hands in a matter of hours. Then he could simply fade into the background, find another buyer among his extensive network of contacts, and return home. Perhaps Julio was right this time. Oscar himself acknowledged that he didn't always make the wisest decisions under pressure. Trusting that idiot Roy Swank, for instance. He should have dealt with that man much more firmly several days earlier. Should have made him pay cash for the drugs and figure out the distribution on his own. The man was a novice and a fool. However, Swank knew nothing of the hostages. Killing them here, with Swank's own shotgun, would likely put Swank in prison for years. That appealed to Oscar at this point. It was also the quickest, easiest way out. “Shoot them!” he called out to Tyler.

Waiting in the beam of the headlights, Marlin had an uneasy feeling that a decision was being made. He knew that now was the time to act if he was going to act at all. Maybe he should grab Becky and take off toward the dam. It would be tricky in the dark, but what other choice did he have? The dam was very narrow and probably under a foot or so of water, with so much rain lately, but he knew he could find it by sheer instinct. The teenager in him would take over and find it. His pursuers would probably think the entire river was at the same depth and just plunge in at a closer point on the bank. They'd find themselves in five feet of water while Marlin and Becky ran for safety.

He could see the silhouette of the man with the shotgun, but he couldn't make out any features. Marlin could tell that the shotgun was aimed at him, not Becky.

“Get ready to run,” he whispered to Becky. “We'll both go.”

“You sure?”

Before Marlin could respond, he heard a horrifying command from the interior of the Cadillac: “Shoot them!”

The man with the shotgun immediately fired a blast.