Cowpokes and Desperadoes (4 page)

Charlie Cookson explained that he was a mining engineer. He showed them a letter signed by Woody Culpepper authorizing him to take ore samples from the ranch for testing.

“It looks promising,” Charlie said. “I’ve already sent off several samples. If they pan out, your uncle could be a very rich man.”

Amos whistled. “Hey, that’d be great, Dunc! If my parents move away, maybe Uncle Woody will adopt me. Maybe buy me a new sports car so I could impress Melissa.”

Dunc frowned. “Mr. Cookson, does anybody else know what you’re doing up here?”

“My company, of course, and the young
man that works for your uncle. I think his name is Billy Ray. Why do you ask?”

“Some strange things have been happening around the ranch. If someone else was aware of what you were doing up here, it could answer a lot of questions.”

“I hate to break this up,” Juan said, “but if we don’t start back now, well be riding in the dark.”

Dunc stuck out his hand. “It’s been nice talking with you, Mr. Cookson. If I’m ever up this way again, maybe we can visit some more.”

“Anytime, young man. Oh, and tell your uncle I’m looking forward to meeting him in person.”

They quietly rode out of the canyon until they reached the ranch road.

Amos broke the silence. “I don’t get it. Why would your uncle Woody have mining equipment hidden in a cave and not tell anyone about it? He sure is going to a lot of trouble to keep everybody from finding out what he’s doing.”

Dunc frowned. “I don’t get it either. Nothing makes sense. Charlie Cookson seemed like a nice guy. I don’t think he was lying. But
how does he tie in with everything else that’s been going on? Uncle Woody wouldn’t steal his own cows or make threatening calls to Maria.”

“Woody obviously doesn’t want us to know what’s going on. Maybe he doesn’t think he can trust any of us,” Juan said.

Dunc shook his head. “I think there’s more to all of this than we know.”

It was almost dark when they rode up to the ranch house. They brushed and fed their horses and started for the house.

Amos had a hard time making his feet move. The ground seemed to sway under him. His legs bowed out, and his rear end was sore. Dunc thought about teasing him until he noticed that his own steps weren’t very steady either.

“Well, I see the daisies made it back.” Billy Ray stepped out of the shadows. “Did you wimps have a nice little walk?”

Juan moved up behind the boys. “What makes you think we had to walk anywhere, Billy Ray?”

Billy Ray coughed and stuttered. “I—I figured these city dudes would end up walking—that’s all.”

“Well, they didn’t walk. Probably no thanks to you. In fact, they rode very well for their first time out.”

“Who are you, Juan? Their mommy?” Billy Ray turned and melted back into the shadows.

“At least now we know it wasn’t a ghost that let our horses go,” Dunc said.

“No, it was a real-life sleazebag.” Juan ran her fingers through her hair. “But why?”

“Maybe your uncle told him to, so we wouldn’t find the mining supplies,” Amos said.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Dunc said. “Billy Ray must have thought this one up on his own.”

Juan laughed. “The only problem with that logic is Billy Ray doesn’t have a brain.”

Amos waddled toward the back door. “I’m going to do some serious soaking in a tub of hot water. As soon as possible.”

Uncle Woody and Maria were waiting in the kitchen. Maria fussed over them and tried to get them to eat something.

Uncle Woody smiled. “We were about to come looking for you guys. I hope you didn’t run into any trouble.”

They looked at each other.

Dunc spoke first. “Not really. We were in Ghost Canyon looking for your prize bull, and we stopped to eat lunch in a cave up there.” He watched his uncle’s face. The expression didn’t change.

Dunc went on. “Anyway, while we were eating lunch, our horses managed to get loose. Juan didn’t have any trouble getting them back, though.”

“Did you see any sign of the bull?”

“No,” Juan answered. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“
We
may not be able to try again tomorrow,” Amos groaned. “I’m not sure I can sit in a chair, much less ride a horse.”

Uncle Woody smiled. “I really appreciate you boys helping out, but maybe tomorrow you should take it easy. Stay around here and help Maria.”

Amos nodded gratefully. “Yeah, Maria probably needs someone to sample her doughnuts. I know it’ll be a tough job—but what the heck—I volunteer.”

“I’ll race you to the tub,” Dunc said.

“Right.” Amos inched his way up the stairs. “It’ll be the slowest race in history.”

•
9

“You know, I think I may be getting the hang of this cowboy stuff.” Amos popped another doughnut into his mouth.

“I don’t think eating jelly doughnuts as fast as Maria can put them on the table is what your average cowboy does all day.” Dunc brushed a crumb off his shirt and opened his notebook.

“What are you writing?” Amos asked.

“I’m making notes about the new evidence we uncovered yesterday about our case.”

“I’m sorry I asked.”

“Every good detective keeps a case notebook. When we become famous, these notes are going to be worth a lot of money.”

“I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.”

Dunc finished writing and slid the notebook into his shirt pocket. “If you’re through stuffing doughnuts in your face, we need to do some investigating. Juan and Uncle Woody are off working on the windmill. And thanks to you, Maria’s up to her elbows in flour. So now’s the perfect time.”

“I’d really like to play detective with you, Dunc, but I’m busy helping Maria. She told me she appreciates my appetite.”

“I don’t think that means she wants you to eat everything in sight.”

“Okay, dudes, listen up.” Billy Ray strutted through the kitchen door with his chest stuck out like a peacock’s. “It’s time to go to work. Culpepper left instructions for you to clean the barn.”

“We saw him before he left this morning,” Amos said. “He didn’t mention anything to us about it.”

“That’s not my problem, chump. I’m only relaying the orders. You can find shovels and a pitchfork near the haystack. I’ll come by later and check on your progress.”

“If you think we’re going to—”

“It’s okay, Amos. Billy Ray’s only doing his
job. We’d be happy to clean the barn. In fact, we’ll get started on it right away.” Dunc pulled Amos out the back door.

“Are you crazy?” Amos yelled.

“Keep your voice down.”

“Keep my voice down? That guy is trying to get us to do his work!”

“I know.”

“You know?”

Dunc nodded. “Billy Ray apparently wants us out of the way for a while. The question is, why?”

“What’s the answer?”

“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”

“Does this mean we’re not going to clean the barn?”

“Not exactly.”

Amos shook his head. “I don’t get it. Are we cleaning the barn or aren’t we?”

“One of us should stay here and work on the barn. In case Billy Ray comes out to check.”

Amos’s eyes narrowed. “Which one of us cleans the barn?”

“This could be a lucky break for us, Amos. I have a feeling about it.”

“Me too. Which one of us cleans the barn?”

Dunc stopped. “Let’s think about this thing logically. The one who stays should be the one who wants the experience of being a real cowboy. And the one who goes should be somebody who doesn’t have a long—make that a very long—history of falling over things.”

“Are you saying I’m clumsy?”

“Let’s put it this way: A wrecking ball is an amateur compared to you.”

Amos thought about it a second. “Okay. But you get back here as soon as you’re through. I still have some serious food testing to do.”

•
10

Dunc stayed in the shadows and worked his way back to the house. He inched up to the living-room window and peeked in. Billy Ray was talking in a low voice to someone over a shortwave radio.

“Right, boss. Everything’s working the way you said it would. I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes at the old adobe house.”

Billy Ray hung up and came flying out the front door. Dunc barely made it around the corner of the house in time to avoid being caught.

Billy Ray went straight to his truck. He jumped in and took off before the truck door
was completely shut. The tires sprayed gravel as he roared out of the driveway.

Dunc raced back to the barn. He found Amos shoveling manure out of a horse stall.

“Amos, something big is going on. I heard Billy Ray talking to someone on Uncle Woody’s shortwave radio.”

Amos dropped the shovel. “It’s about time you got back. There are jelly doughnuts in that house with my name on them!”

“He’s leaving now to meet with his accomplice and discuss their next move.”

“So?”

“I heard Billy Ray say his part of the deal was in the bag.”

“Dunc, this thing is getting away from you—big time.”

“If we were to follow Billy Ray to his meeting, we might bust this thing wide open.”

“I have a better idea. Let’s go in the house, scarf down a few doughnuts, and wait for Juan and your uncle to get back. If they think it’s important, they can call the sheriff.”

Dunc shook his head. “We can’t wait that long. Billy Ray already left.”

“Hold it!”

“What?”

“Exactly how did you think we were going to follow him?”

“That’s the tricky part.”

Amos waited.

“We can’t walk because he’s driving, and he’d get too far ahead of us.”

Amos waited.

“And neither one of us can drive. So I guess that means we’ll have to ride.…”

Amos shook his head. “Forget it. There’s no way you’re going to get me on that horse again. I’m sore in places I didn’t even know I had. I’ve decided my cowboy days are over. I’m going to spend the rest of my vacation helping Maria.”

Dunc leaned back against the horse stall. “I understand, Amos. Really.”

“You do?”

“Sure. If we were to crack this case, Melissa would probably go a little overboard with the hero worship. She might lose control completely. Who knows what would happen then?”

Amos thought about it. Not long. “Maybe I could put a pillow in the saddle.…”

Dunc smiled and headed for the corral.

•
11

Saddling the horses took longer than Dunc had planned. Gomer ran around the corral until Amos assured him he was the best-looking and most intelligent horse on the ranch, probably on the planet.

Even after the saddles were on, things didn’t go too well. Dunc’s saddle turned sideways every time he stepped in the stirrup, and Amos put his saddle on facing the wrong direction.

After about an hour and several more tries, they managed to saddle and bridle both horses. Before they left, Dunc pinned a note on the barn wall telling his uncle where they would be.

Billy Ray’s tire tracks were easy to follow. They stayed on the main road for a few miles, then turned south up a canyon bed.

Amos stood in the stirrups to avoid sitting. After a few miles he pulled his horse to a stop and stepped down. “I’ve changed my mind. Not even Melissa is worth this much pain.”