Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [124]
Johnny joined up with Kerney as he trailed behind the cattle moving toward the pass. “Are you ready?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Have you ridden through the pass?” Kerney asked.
“Twice.”
“There’s bad footing in there,” Kerney said, “and mesquite and cactus on either side just waiting to jab man and beast. These cows are going to go every which way on that trail.”
“Don’t get throwed off that horse,” Johnny said.
“Isn’t that what you used to do for a living?”
Johnny threw back his head and laughed. “More often than not.”
The man with the bullhorn began a countdown. Johnny spurred his horse and veered away to flank the herd on the side where the dolly camera had been positioned. Suddenly, the sound of helicopter rotors and police sirens filled the air and spooked the lead cows into a slant away from the pass. From that point on every working hand forgot about the movie as they ate dust and tried to keep the cattle from scattering.
Kerney entered the pass at the rear of the herd. Pressed tightly together, the cows were clambering over the rocks, crashing through the brush, stumbling against the canyon walls. Some stragglers turned for the valley. Kerney hit them on their snout with his lasso, but only one animal retreated toward the herd. The rest thundered past him to safety.
He pushed Lucky forward, reached out, and slapped a cow on the rump with his coiled lasso. The cow broke right and Lucky cut him off, pivoting and digging with his rear legs, sticking to the animal like a burr in its tail.
Kerney worked the stragglers until the sound of the helicopters and police sirens faded away. He glanced skyward. The choppers were leaving the valley. Behind him the police units were at a full stop.
Johnny’s horse threw dirt as he reined in next to him. “That’s it,” he said. He pointed at the cliff above the pass, where one of the crew stood waving everyone off. “We’re done.”
Kerney looked up the trail through the pass. A bottleneck of frightened cows bawled and kicked in frustration. “Not yet. We need to turn those cattle around, get them out of there and watered.”
“Let the working hands do it,” Johnny said.
Kerney gave him a long, hard look, remembering the day years ago when Johnny had left him out on the Jornada in the fierce afternoon heat, fixing fence ten miles from nowhere, and never returned.
“What?” Johnny asked.
“Do you always leave a job unfinished?” Kerney didn’t wait for a reply. He spurred Lucky forward and spent the next hour helping the hands untangle the cattle and move them back into the valley. Johnny was long gone when the work was done.
By sunset the temperature had cooled down nicely and a refreshing breeze washed across the Bootheel. At the Playas apartment Kerney turned off the air conditioning and opened all the doors and windows. Weary from three days in the saddle, he pulled off his boots and sprawled on the couch. On the living room carpet Patrick was busy building an airplane out of a Lego set borrowed from the nanny’s treasure trove of toys.
Realizing that he’d forgotten to check for messages, Kerney speed-dialed his cell-phone voice mail. Matt Chacon had called, but instead of leaving any information, he’d asked for a call back. Kerney got Chacon on the phone.
“There was no saddlemaker named Matt Thornton in Nevada, Chief,” Chacon said, “so I did an Internet search and found him in Arizona. That saddle was stolen out of his shop a year ago. It has a retail value of forty-five hundred dollars. Whoever took it must have added the sterling-silver cap with his initials to the saddle horn. Do you have a suspect?”
“Possibly,” Kerney said. “Did you confirm the theft?”
“Yes, sir. It was entered into the NCIC computer system the day after it was stolen. The thief got into the workshop by breaking a rear window. He took only the saddle, and it wasn’t even the most expensive one there.”
“Where is Thornton located?”
“In Duncan, Arizona. He does custom saddles for clients all over the country. You want his address