Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [53]
“Yes, they are,” Kerney replied. “I grew up on a ranch outside of Truth or Consequences that neighbored their old spread.”
“Then you know that Joe’s a smart old boy. He’s had me over for supper a number of times, mostly to pick my brain about water conservation. I’ll tell you this: He may be long in the tooth, but he sure keeps up with the latest ranching practices.”
“What has he done?”
Dobson described how Joe used solar power to pump water at his remote wells, covered stock tanks with evaporation barriers, used almost indestructible truck tires as water troughs in his holding pastures, and had protected several artesian springs in the foothills by fencing off the streambeds and restoring the riparian habitat.
“He’s saved hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every year,” Dobson added, “recharged the aquifer, and has reduced his pumping costs. He hasn’t had to dig deeper wells, install larger pumps, or spend a lot of money on erosion stabilization. It’s damn smart ranch management.”
Dobson looked over at Usher and his team standing in the middle of the baseball diamond next to the empty outdoor swimming pool. “What are they going to be filming here?” he asked.
“A country music concert,” Kerney replied. “Free to the first five hundred or so people who show up.”
“Now, that I’ll have to see,” Dobson said, breaking into a grin.
“Do you know Walt Shaw?” Kerney asked. The motor vehicle and background check he’d asked for on Shaw had come back clean.
“Walt is as solid as a rock,” Dobson said. “He showed up in the Bootheel about the same time I did. Grew up in Virden on the Gila River Valley near the Arizona border. It’s a Mormon ranching and farming community. He once had kin living there, but they’ve all passed away. He owns a house he inherited that he uses as a getaway, mostly during hunting season. I spent a weekend with him up there tracking mule deer bucks in the Big Burro Mountains. Neither of us had a darn bit of luck.”
Kerney had half a mind to ask Dobson about Mendoza, who worked as a part-time security guard at the smelter, but decided to leave that to Ray Bratton, the young Border Patrol agent who was scheduled to go undercover as a film-crew apprentice when shooting began. Instead, he talked about deer hunting with Dobson.
When Dobson finished reminiscing about a more recent, successful hunt, he made his excuses and left. If Kerney had his geography right, Virden was just a few miles east of Duncan, Arizona, where Johnny had gone to check out the rodeo grounds for the film.
Earlier, Johnny had called from Duncan with the news that the location was available and could be rented for the film. To fit in a change to the scouting schedule, Charlie Zwick had arranged for the caterer to pack sack lunches so the team could eat while they traveled to the rodeo grounds, which were about an hour away by car.
Kerney caught Usher’s attention as he was leaving the ball field and asked if he was needed for the remainder of the day. In a hurry to move on to the next shooting-script location, Usher shook his head, thanked Kerney for his help, and said he would see him when filming got under way.
In his truck Kerney located Virden on a state highway map. A secondary road that branched off from the main highway to Duncan led straight to the settlement along the Gila River Valley. He decided to make a quick run past Mendoza’s house to see if the panel van was there, before moving on to the Granite Pass Ranch and then to Virden.
At the house a man he took to be Mendoza was washing the Motor Transportation squad car in the driveway. As Kerney drove by, a younger-looking man exited the house and climbed into the driver’s seat of the panel van parked at the curb. Kerney waved at the men and kept going, wondering who the young man was and whether or not he should just drop the whole thing and leave it all up to Agents Fidel and Bratton to figure out. The cop in him said no.
On the highway to the ranch Kerney thought about the Jordan family. Joe and Bessie came from frontier stock. Bessie’s ancestors