The Ranger - Ace Atkins [25]
“You boys lost?”
The skinny man—Quinn seeing the jacket patches included both the American and Confederate flags—smiled a row of very uneven yellowed teeth. A tattoo crept around the side of his neck. He looked to be jail-hard, moving slow in speech and eyes. A gun at his waist. That fat man with the wispy red beard carried a 12-gauge.
“Let ’em out,” Quinn said.
The skinny man kept grinning.
Quinn walked right through the center of the group, elbowing one boy out of the way, and to the cattle trailer. He opened the gate, whistling and calling out the cows. Hondo hopped inside and nipped them along.
A half ring of men moved toward Quinn as he stepped back and let the flow of cattle pass him. He saw two more guns, the boss yet to pull his pistol, and Quinn kept his rifle by his side, finger on the trigger.
The men shuffled and stared, a couple of them looking to the boss and toeing the ground.
“You need me to call the sheriff’s office?” Quinn asked. “This place isn’t abandoned.”
The skinny man nodded to a couple of the boys and they made a run at Quinn, Quinn stepping right for them, busting one in the skull with the rifle’s butt and punching the other in the throat, not even breaking stride until he got within maybe a foot of the boss man’s face and smiled at him. The man smelled of sharp body odor and old cigarettes.
The man pulled his pistol, and Quinn reached for his wrist, twisting it back until there was a sharp snap and the man fell to his knees. Quinn kicked him in the body twice as he fell and the gun dropped. Quinn picked it up, emptied the cylinder of the cheap .38, and slid it into his pocket.
“Gather your shit and get gone,” Quinn said. “I’m in my legal right to shoot every one of you shitbags.”
Hondo barked and nipped at the fat man’s heels. He kicked at the dog.
Quinn said: “Do that again.”
He walked straight away, not looking back, not hearing that telltale click of weapons until he reached the gate. There were two clicks, but Quinn didn’t really give a damn, as if he’d heard the buzz of a mosquito.
Quinn called Wesley Ruth, but five minutes later the rusted trailer drawn by a King Cab truck ran down the road, bumping over potholes and ravines, Quinn standing on the porch, watching the face of the skinny man behind the wheel but not getting a look in return. With the trailer in the way, Quinn couldn’t get a read on the tag.
The fat man remained in the empty cattle hold like a fattened hog, pointing a pistol up at Quinn and smiling, wild-eyed and happy, giving a jailhouse wink before they turned onto the main road.
Quinn made coffee in an old speckled pot on the propane stove, and he and Wesley sat on the porch rocking chairs—just as cold inside the house as outside—drinking and talking. Quinn had a couple cigars in his truck, and they fired them up, Hondo now at his feet.
“So you found the dog,” Wesley said, studying the tip of the cigar like he was surprised by the glow. He wore a flannel shirt under his old Tibbehah High letter jacket, occasionally taking off his ball cap and rubbing his head.
“He found me.”
“You say there were five of them.”
Quinn described all the men.
“You think your uncle may have sold the cattle?”
“You know a lot of folks who work cows in the middle of the night?”
“I put out word to look for that King Cab and the trailer.”
“I guess I need to do something with those damn cows,” Quinn said. “Anyone caring for them?”
“I heard Varner was tending to your uncle’s business.”
Quinn nodded, and the men sat in silence for a while. “I saw Anna Lee tonight.”
Wesley cracked a grin, the cigar clamped in his teeth. “That didn