Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) (6 page)

"You always were a dog hater," Lisa shot at him.

"For God's sake, Lisa, every dog you own wants to bite me." Tim took the beer Lisa handed him and sat down at the table.

Lisa gestured gently at one of the two empty chairs, and I sat down, too. Lisa took the last chair. We were gathered.

"So, what's the problem?" Glen's face was drawn tight, fine lines of tension around his eyes. He looked old and tired, I thought. It was not something I was used to thinking of Glen.

Lisa produced the piece of cardboard and began the story; I hardly listened. I was watching Glen as circumspectly as I could, thinking about what he'd meant to me over the years, trying to sort out my feelings.

I didn't want to think of Glen as old and tired, I realized. He represented something that I was loath to let go of completely-a childhood memory of a time when I could safely look up to the adults around me, counting on them for help and guidance. That time was long past, but Glen remained, a remnant of my youth. I'd invested him with heroic properties, and I wasn't about to allow him to assume the guise of a mere mortal.

Tim shrugged. "I don't know. But what in the world would be the point of somebody doing that on purpose? They couldn't possibly know which horse would step in that hole."

Lisa fired right back at him. "They knew whatever happened, it would happen in Dad's arena. Somebody is trying to get at Dad."

Tim shook his head at her. "It still doesn't make sense, Lisa. If someone wants to get at Dad bad enough to risk killing somebody, why don't they take potshots at Dad himself? These things that happened are accidents; they don't fit a pattern. There isn't any motive that would explain them."

Lisa bristled. "Tim, that's ridiculous. Nobody, not even a kid as dumb as you were, could be stupid enough to do that and think it was just fun and games."

Tim grinned at her. Glen looked at me. "So what do you think, Gail?"

The ball was in my court. I cleared my throat. "I don't know, Glen. It does seem a little odd to me. Lisa's been telling me about it. I guess I'd have to say that I reserve judgment until I've got a few more facts."

Weak, weak, I told myself. But the natural outcome of my veterinary training. We veterinarians, like doctors, are loath to stick our necks out there on a long shot. Instead we run a few more tests, gather our facts.

Lisa gave him a dirty look, but it was too late. Glen turned and headed toward the door while Tim cocked his chair back a little more comfortably. "You might need some protection," he told Lisa.

I tried to decide if he was serious or not. It was hard to tell. Tim said everything, or almost everything, in a lazy, amused drawl. His brown eyes stayed sleepy and quiet. It was, I had to admit, a sexy expression. Tim looked as though he was thinking of rolling into the sack any moment.

Lisa sighed. "I'm going to change my shirt," she said. "I'm filthy." She disappeared into the back of her house.

Tim and I sat at her table and looked at each other. I'd known Tim ever since high school, too. He was some four or five years younger than I, the same age as my longtime friend Bret Boncantini. Bret and Tim had been buddies, which had created a bond, fragile but tenuous, between me and Tim.

"So, how's Bret doing?" he asked me.

"OK, I guess; I haven't heard from him in a while. I guess you know Deb's pregnant?"

"Yeah, I heard." Tim and I raised our eyebrows at each other in mutual amazement. To those who had known Bret's irreverent, irresponsible lifestyle, his announced decision a year ago to marry his off-again, on-again girlfriend, Deb, and retire to the Sierra Nevada foothills to raise cattle and children had come as something of a shock. Nobody had believed he meant it. Apparently, though, we were wrong.

"Well, I wish him the best of luck." Tim sounded as though he thought Bret would need it. I didn't argue. Raising a family, let alone a bunch of cattle, sounded like hard work to me. Lisa came back into the kitchen with her springy curls damp. She wore a clean T-shirt and jeans, and her eyes were bright. Tim gave a long wolf whistle. "You look pretty good for thirty-five. "

She punched him in the shoulder. "Thirty-four. I'll be thirty-five next month. Come on; let's go. They've got an air conditioner at the Saddlerack."

I leaped to my feet with alacrity. I was more than ready for an air conditioner. Lisa's little house seemed to have gathered the stale heat of the afternoon; a drop of sweat ran down my cheek as I stood up.

Lisa shut the dogs in the yard, and we all piled into her pickup. Settling into the seat between her and Tim, as we jounced down the dirt road I was reminded of many, many high school evenings. How lighthearted they had been. A little of that feeling returned to me now, that sense of rolling down the road on a Saturday with the eager expectation that anything could happen next. With a jolt, I realized I'd forgotten all about Lonny. Lonny and Sara.

What the hell, I thought. By the time Lisa pulled into the parking lot of the Saddlerack some ten minutes later, I'd convinced myself that maybe I was ready to forget about Lonny permanently.

SEVEN

The Saddlerack sits at the junction of Lone Oak Road and Skyline Road and it, along with a store/gas station, is the town of Lone Oak. A couple of houses clustered nearby. Redwood trees shaded the buildings, making them look cool and welcoming this hot afternoon.

The little bar hadn't changed a bit since I'd seen it last. Shingled all over, with a tin roof and bright red trim, it hunkered cheerfully down by the side of the road. A fading sign announced: COLD BEER.

I was more interested in cold air. Tim pulled the door open and I walked through it, drinking in the cool, dim interior like a long swallow of spring water.

Lisa walked ahead of me into the bar half of the bar/restaurant and headed automatically for the round table in the corner. She pulled up short when she realized someone else was sitting there.

Susan Slater was sitting there. With the bespectacled man in shorts who had been with her at the roping. Their protest signs were on the floor at their feet, and they had mugs of draft beer in front of them.

Lisa started to do an abrupt about-face, but I grabbed her elbow firmly. "Come on," I hissed, and we marched up to the table together. "Mind if we sit down?" I asked.

Susan's companion looked at us blankly. Susan stared up into my face, narrowing her eyes. "Go right ahead. I'd like to talk to you."

We sat down in the two remaining chairs; I glanced around the room. Everything looked just the same. Old, battered trophy heads and faded, curling slogans covered the walls. The long wooden bar was scuffed to just the right degree of shabbiness. I recognized several local ranchers and ropers who had been at Glen's, standing or sitting, draft beers in hand.

Tim was ordering drinks from the bartender. My eyes snapped back for a second look. "That's Janey," I said.

Janey Borba, Al's daughter, had been in Lisa's and my high school class, along with Susan. And here she was, tending bar in the Saddlerack, seventeen years later.

She stood with her chin up, wearing the same belligerent expression she had worn in high school. Like Al, Janey always seemed to have a grudge against the world. Her mouth stayed straight and hard as Tim smiled at her, and her big, dark eyes never flickered. Janey hadn't changed a bit.

She'd kept her figure, and it was the kind you saw mostly on
Playboy
centerfolds. Her bright red T-shirt was tight enough to show off her nipples, and her jeans looked like they were painted on. The general effect was that of a billboard shouting, Come hither.

But above all this lavishly displayed temptation rode Janey's face. Taken feature by feature, it was attractive enough, but in contrast to her clothes, her expression said,
Don't mess with me, buster.
Her long black hair fell to her waist, but she wore it pulled back in a severe braid, which only highlighted her stern expression. Everything from the upward tilt of her chin to the thin-lipped line of her mouth announced that she could take care of any unwanted overtures.

Susan had followed my eyes to Janey and was staring at her. "I don't get it," she said. "Why does she dress like that?" Susan's voice was loud enough to carry easily to where Janey stood, but not a muscle flickered in Janey's face.

I shrugged. I'd never been friends with Janey Borba, but I had no wish to insult the woman. Susan wasn't easily put off. "She's never liked men, so why dress like that?"

"Everybody's got different taste," I said softly, watching Tim try to flirt with Janey. She gave him cold looks in exchange for his suggestive ones, put his beer and his change on the counter, and walked away. Tim watched the red T-shirt and skintight jeans undulate away from him with obvious regret.

Lisa sighed in my ear. "That damn Tim's been trying to get in her pants for years. I don't know why he bothers. Janey won't give him the time of day." All this was said in an obvious whisper to me while Lisa looked pointedly away from Susan.

Susan glared openly back. Maybe sitting these two down together hadn't been such a good idea.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked Susan.

"How you, a supposedly ethical veterinarian, can condone something as cruel and inhumane as team roping." Once again, Susan's tone was such that everyone in the bar could listen in. I noticed a certain stillness fall over the room at her words.

Lisa stirred next to me, and I put a hand on her arm. "Why exactly is it you think team roping is cruel and inhumane?" I asked Susan.

"Horses, like all animals, should live free. We humans have no right to make slaves out of them." Susan declaimed this in the pitch of a public orator. It was clear she'd made the statement before. Her male friend was watching her with a look of admiration.

"Susan, that's impossible," I said. "There isn't enough range left for all horses to run free. The wild horses that do exist are being captured and locked up in pens because they're overgrazing the land they're on. Various environmental groups are protesting their very existence; they say the horses are destroying the native habitat. On top of which, I do not think any horse would rather be starving to death in a poor year or dying of infection or packing a broken leg until some cougar gets him. I think horses are, or can be, happier in the company of men."

"Ideally, huh? How about practically? Do you just want to turn all the horses and dogs and cats in the world loose to romp around in traffic?"

Lisa grinned at this, but Susan bounced right back. "Of course not, but I do not want to see horses and cattle tortured."

"Do you think horses and cattle would rather stand around in a pen all day than go team roping?"

"They'd rather be in a pasture," she said firmly.

"They might. In a perfect world, all horses might live in big pastures and run around and eat grass all day. In a perfect world, we'd all be rich and have no troubles. In real life, most people can't afford to own a hundred acres for every horse. The best we can do is provide them with a decent-sized pen. And horses like to get out of their pen and go do something where they run hard. It's their nature."

"How do you know that?" she demanded.

I was silent for a second. This was the problem. If you knew horses, you knew these things, but how to explain them to a non-horseman?

Before I could formulate the words, Lisa jumped in. "Susan, everybody knows that. If you're so goddamn ignorant about horses you should keep your mouth shut."

Susan's eyes flashed fire. Before she could open her mouth, I said, "Wait a minute. Just listen. The reason Lisa said that is she's spent her whole life around horses. She knows them. Susan, do you have a cat or a dog?"

"Yes," she admitted. "Both."

"Well, you know if your dog or cat is hungry or feeling friendly or wants to go out or feels sick or whatever, don't you?"

"Sure."

"Well, Lisa knows that about horses and cattle. We both know if our horses are enjoying what they're doing, and many, not all, team-roping horses like their work."

"They don't like breaking their legs," Susan shot back.