Cowpokes and Desperadoes (2 page)

“Not much. They just said everything was arranged and Culpepper would be history. For a minute there, I thought they were talking about you. I guess it must have been somebody else.”

“Don’t you get it? Those guys weren’t talking about me. They were talking about my uncle Woody—Woody Culpepper.”

“Why would anybody want to hurt your uncle? I thought you said he was a nice guy.”

“He is. I can’t figure why anyone would be after him. Hmm.”

Amos closed his eyes. “Oh, no. Don’t. Please don’t start with that.”

“What?”

“That sound. Every time you make that sound, I wind up in trouble. This is supposed to be a nice, quiet, fun vacation. No mysteries. Why can’t we do it that way just once?”

“Amos, my uncle could be in some kind of trouble. We can’t just pretend we didn’t hear anything.”

“I could try. My uncle Alfred—the one who picks his feet?—anyway, he’s always saying things my mom tells me to pretend I didn’t hear. Like the time he dropped his cigar in his lap and burned a hole through his pant leg, and—”

Dunc interrupted. “This is different. These guys sound serious.”

Amos sighed. “I suppose you have a plan?”

“The first thing we need to do is ID those two guys behind us.”

“Are you going to talk like a secret agent for the whole vacation?”

Dunc opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out. “Wait a few minutes, then follow me back to our seats. We don’t want to be noticed, so try to act nonchalant.”

“What does that mean?”

“Natural. Try to act natural.”

He shouldn’t have said it. They argued about it later.
Natural
for some people means one thing, but for Amos, it takes on a whole new definition.

Dunc was halfway to his seat when he heard the crash. Amos tripped coming-out of the rest room. He did a nose dive into the flight attendant’s serving cart. Several people who were unlucky enough to have aisle seats were drenched with ice water. One man was screaming. He thought he had been shot until he discovered it was only tomato juice on his shirt.

When Dunc finally found him, Amos was stuck under the seat of an irate lady passenger. She had a grapefruit on her head and was grinding her high heel into the middle of his back.

It took some doing, but Dunc finally managed to convince the woman that Amos was harmless. She let him up but made him promise not to get out of his seat again until the plane landed.

“So much for not drawing attention to ourselves,” Dunc said.

He led Amos back down the aisle to their seats. Before they sat down, Dunc casually
leaned around the back of his seat to get a look at the men in the row behind them.

Empty.

Not one person was sitting in the whole row.

Now, why would they have moved? Dunc thought. They couldn’t have known … or could they? He looked down at the name tag on his shirt. His last name was in bold print.

Culpepper
.

•
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Uncle Woody met them at the airport. He was a tall, lean man with a twinkle in his brown eyes. He gave Dunc a bear hug and shook Amos’s hand as if he were pumping water. They loaded their bags into the back of his ancient pickup truck and headed for the ranch.

Dunc answered all the usual questions about his family. Then came the question he was waiting for.

“Did you boys have a good flight out?”

“It was a pretty smooth flight, but we did have something strange happen. Two men sitting behind us were talking about taking care
of someone named Culpepper who owned a ranch.” Dunc looked over at his uncle.

The tall man rubbed his temple. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “It couldn’t have been anything important,” he said. “You probably had the misfortune of sitting in front of our distinguished bank president, J. B. Grimes. He and I have had some unpleasant dealings lately. He makes a lot of threats, but he’s mostly full of hot air. Don’t let it bother you.”

“Oh, we won’t.” Amos glared at Dunc. “Will we?”

Dunc ignored him. “You mentioned in your letter that a lot of your hands had quit. Did they tell you why?”

“They all had their reasons, I guess.” Uncle Woody shifted in his seat. “It’s really lucky for me that you boys came out when you did. I can sure use your help until the new hands get here.”

“We’re the lucky ones,” Amos said. “Riding, roping, herding them little dogies …”

“Now, hold on, pardner.” Uncle Woody grinned. “We do have a couple horses picked out for you boys, but you’ll need to take it real slow. For the first few days, I’ll have Juan
show you around. Then if you’re still willing, well talk about your chores.”

“How much farther is it to the ranch?” Amos asked.

“Son, we’ve been on it ever since we turned off the highway. The Rocking C covers a good chunk of land. We’ll reach the main house in about fifteen minutes.”

Amos sat back and looked at the desert landscape. In the distance were rolling hills, and farther away, blue-gray mountains.

Uncle Woody slowed down. He was looking at some cows milling around a dirt tank. A cowboy was riding among them. When he spotted the truck, the cowboy turned his horse and took off at a dead run.

“What was that all about?” Dunc asked.

Uncle Woody pulled up beside the tank. “Another unwelcome visitor. We’ve been having our share of those lately.”

He stepped out of the truck and looked around. The cows were gentle, and when they saw the truck, they headed for it and started bawling for food. Uncle Woody reached in the back for a can of grain and poured it into a trough.

Dunc slipped out the other side of the truck. “That guy doesn’t work for you?”

“Nope. I’m not sure who he works for, but I think he was after these cows. If we hadn’t come up on him, he might have pulled it off.”

Amos walked over. “Are you serious? Cattle rustlers? I thought that stuff only happened in the movies.”

Uncle Woody bent down to look at the track the horse had left. “Believe it or not, cows are worth a lot of money. We’ve had quite a few stolen lately.”

“Have you called the police?” Dunc asked.

“I had the sheriff out here the other day. But so far he hasn’t come up with anything.” Uncle Woody straightened up. “Well, we’d better get a move on, boys, or Juan and Maria will be wondering what’s keeping us.”

“Do Juan and Maria work for you?” Amos asked.

“It’s more like they work
with
me. Maria is Juan’s grandmother. She’s lived on this ranch almost as long as I have. Juan is my top hand, and Maria sort of runs the place. I couldn’t make it without them.”

Amos stepped in a pile of cow manure on his way back to the truck. He kicked hard in
an effort to whip the slimy stuff off, but instead his boot went sailing through the air.

Dunc went on talking as if nothing unusual were happening. “How many cowboys do you have working for you altogether?”

Amos hopped around on one foot trying to get to his loose boot.

“Counting Juan, two.”

Dunc opened the truck door. “You run this big place with two ranch hands?”

“Well, I work, too, of course. And you boys are fixing to help out. So now we have five.”

Amos’s hat slipped down over his eyes, and he couldn’t see where he was going. He reached down for the boot, but his buckle wouldn’t let him bend over. He wobbled, tried to regain his balance, and fell backward, seat-first, into another pile of cow manure.

Dunc sighed and closed the truck door. He walked over, helped Amos to his feet, and handed him his boot.

Uncle Woody laughed. “Amos, now you not only look like a cowboy, you smell like one too.”

•
4

The pickup came to a stop in front of a white adobe ranch house. Tall cottonwood trees covered the front of it. A black and white border collie jumped the fence and ran to greet them.

“Boys, this is Suzy. I should have included her when I was naming our hands. She’s a good one. Say howdy, girl.”

The dog sat back and lifted one paw up and down as if she were waving.

The front door burst open, and a Mexican-American woman came bustling out of the house.

“Señor Culpepper, I am so glad you are back. The calls—they started again, almost as soon as you left.”

“Now, calm down, Maria. You’re going to excite the boys. I want you to meet my great-nephew Dunc Culpepper and his friend Amos Binder.”

“
Hola
, boys. We are so glad you have come. Juan and I have been watching for you. Please come in the house. I have prepared refreshments.”

Uncle Woody looked around. “Where’s Juan?”

Maria pointed toward the barn. “Feeding the horses.”

“That’s supposed to be Billy Ray’s job.”

“Billy Ray left earlier. He didn’t say where he was going or when he’d be back.”

“Maria, take the boys in and show them to their room. I’ll go find Juan and be right back.”

Dunc and Amos followed Maria inside and up a carved wooden staircase. Their room had a set of bunk beds with a wagon wheel on the end, a double dresser, and a small leather couch. On the walls were pictures of horses.

Amos threw his suitcase on the top bunk and plopped onto the couch. “Isn’t this ranch
fantastic? It’s just like I had it pictured! Maybe even better.”

Dunc closed the door. “Amos, something strange is going on here. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Yeah. I heard your uncle tell us it wasn’t important and that we shouldn’t worry about it.”

“What about the phone calls and the cattle rustling?”

Amos shrugged. “This is New Mexico. Those things happen. The sheriff is working on it. Lighten up. Let’s go downstairs and find those refreshments.”

Dunc took a small pad of paper out of his bag and started making notes.

“Only you,” Amos said, “would bring a notebook on a trip like this.”

“I don’t want to forget anything when we start to work on the case.”

“Case? There is no case. Why do you have to play private eye everywhere we go?”

“Two men talk about my uncle being history, and then they disappear. Add that to cattle rustling and strange phone calls. I’d call that a case.”

Amos stood up. “I’d call it time to eat. Are you coming?”

Dunc made a couple of quick notes and put his notebook away. “Right behind you.”

In the kitchen, Maria was setting the table with all kinds of goodies. Amos had trouble figuring out where to start. He’d just stuffed a jelly doughnut into his mouth when Uncle Woody stepped in.

“Boys, I’d like you to meet Juan, my top hand.”

A girl about their age, with short black hair and mischievous black eyes, stepped out from behind him.

“Hi.”

Amos coughed. He nearly choked. Dunc pounded him on the back.

Uncle Woody laughed. “I call her Juan for short. Her given name is Juanita Carmen Avila Gonzalez. Juan seems easier.” He turned to Juan. “Why don’t you take the boys out and show them around before it gets dark, Juan-ita?”

“Sure. You guys come with me,” she said. “I’ll show you where we keep the horses.”

She led them to the barn in back of the house. There were two horses in the corral.
One was white with dark spots on his rump, and the other was reddish brown.

“These are the horses we’ve picked out for you to ride while you’re here. The sorrel is called Pete and the Appaloosa is Gomer.”

Amos moved to the fence. He reached out and touched the sorrel.

Juan climbed up on the fence. “You can ride them if you want. Not very far, of course—it’s almost dark. The tack is in the barn.”

Amos looked at Dunc. “Tack? Why tacks? I thought you had to have a saddle and reins and stuff. Won’t tacks hurt the horse?”

Juan smiled. “Maybe we’d better put off the riding until we have a chance to go over a couple of things.”

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