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  “So have you met the matriarch, Brenda Cates?” Reed asked Joe, cocking his head as he pulled into his designated parking spot on the side of the county building.

  The way he’d asked, Joe surmised, held significance.

  “No. Marybeth’s met her at the library. Brenda wanted her support on creating signs to post at the entrances to town bragging about Dallas.”

  Reed nodded. “She wants signage put up declaring Saddlestring the ‘hometown of PRCA bull-riding champion Dallas Cates.’”

  Joe snorted.

  “Let’s just say she’s very proud and protective of her family,” Reed said as he swung his seat around and lifted himself into his wheelchair in a single fluid motion.

  Before Joe could ask what that meant, Reed’s cell phone burred and the sheriff held it up to his ear. He listened for a minute, then asked, “What about Dallas?” before listening more and punching off.

  “What about Dallas?” Joe asked.

  “That was my deputy. Dallas’s parents say he’s laid up and can’t make the trip into town right now. But Eldon and Brenda Cates themselves should be here any minute. They’re being very cooperative, I’m told.”

  Joe said, “I’ll bet.”

  Sheriff Reed said, “If Dallas Cates is that banged-up and has actually been home for a while, he might not have been the one, Joe.”

  “I want to see him. I want a doctor to evaluate his condition.”

  “We can do that,” Reed said, “and we will. But first I think we should hear out Eldon and Brenda, don’t you?”

  Joe agreed.

  “Brenda is the one you should be interested in,” Reed said, arching his eyebrows and sliding the van door open.

  3

  Eldon and Brenda Cates sat in hard-backed chairs across from Sheriff Reed’s desk in his office. Joe stood off to the side with his arms folded over his chest, leaning against the radiator. He’d agreed to observe only and to not ask questions. Dulcie Schalk, the county prosecutor, had taken a side chair next to Reed’s desk. She’d positioned herself in such a way as to keep a close eye on both Joe and the Cateses.

  Eldon asked, “Has April said what happened to her?”

  Sheriff Reed shook his head. “Not yet. She wasn’t conscious when we found her.”

  “That’s what we figured,” Eldon said, and he and Brenda exchanged knowing glances. “Because if she could talk she’d a told you our boy Dallas didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Reed said.

  “We can guess what you all might be thinking,” Eldon said. “But it ain’t like that. When your guys came out and told us what’d happened, we figured we ought to come in here right away and nip this in the bud.” When he said it, he cast a quick look toward Joe.

  Eldon was tall and rawboned, with broad shoulders and a weather-beaten face. He had thin straw-colored hair and a heavy lantern jaw. His hands were large and red and crablike, and it appeared to Joe that Eldon didn’t know what to do with them when he was seated. First they were on his lap, then rested on his thighs, then hanging down on either side like twin slabs of meat in a cooler. He wore a heavy wool hunting shirt, worn jeans, and lace-up high-heeled outfitter boots for riding that were covered with years of bloodstains from dead deer, antelope, and elk.

  “What is it you think we’re thinking?” Reed asked without a hint of aggressiveness.

  Eldon glanced at Joe again, then at Dulcie. He said, “That Dallas might have had something to do with this.”

  “Why would we think that?” Dulcie asked.

  She was tightly coiled, as always. Dulcie Schalk was in her mid-thirties, with soft, dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a trim, athletic figure. She was dressed in a dark suit with a ruffled white blouse. She was single and considered one of the prime catches in Twelve Sleep County, although there were rumors about her sexual preference. Joe had once wondered as well, until she’d asked him some provocative questions about his friend Nate Romanowski. Dulcie was tough and thorough, and never went to court unless she was absolutely convinced she had the evidence to obtain a conviction. Her success rate was more than ninety-five percent, and she’d recently won her first reelection.

  “Because that’s how you people think,” Eldon said in answer to Dulcie’s question. He leaned back and said, “You people sit up here and look down on the little people out in the county just trying to make a living.”

  Reed reacted with scorn and shook his head. He said, “I’m the sheriff of the whole county, Eldon. I’m not just sheriff of Saddlestring.”

  Dulcie said to Eldon, “I don’t believe at this point a single accusation has been made, so I hope we can put your prejudices and assumptions aside and start over. We’re just in an information-gathering phase. Now, from what I understand, you two volunteered to come in here. We want to hear what you have to say.”

  “So we can rule things out,” Reed added.

  Eldon nodded slightly. He had heavy-lidded eyes and virtually no expression. Brenda looked over at him approvingly but had yet to say a word.

  Brenda Cates was heavy, with a round face and permed auburn hair. She wore a faded blue dress and heavy sensible shoes, and she clutched her overlarge purse on her lap with both hands. Her face was hangdog, jowly, matronly pleasant at first glance. She looked like the type of woman who baked lots of cookies and took in stray cats, Joe thought. She wore no makeup.

  Joe couldn’t figure out why Reed had suggested she was the one to watch instead of Eldon.

  Eldon looked over to Joe again and said directly to him, “I should’a said earlier we’re just both real damned sorry about what happened to your girl.”

  “Thank you,” Joe said.

  Eldon said, “Dallas feels damned bad, too. He’d have been here if he wasn’t so buggered up. He’s got busted ribs and a shitload of other injuries from the Houston Rodeo last week. He drew a bull that pounded the crap outta him. That bull got him down on the arena floor and threw him around like a cat playing with a mouse. Them bullfighters tried to get him out, but you know how a bull is when its mind is made up. We seen it on TV and it was a damned bad wreck.”

  Brenda visibly shuddered and clutched her purse even tighter when she seemed to recall viewing the ride.

  “So Dallas has been home awhile?” Reed asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Eldon said.

  “Was April here with him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where was she?” Reed asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Eldon said. “Dallas said she took off a while back, after they broke up. She left with some other buckle bunnies and he ain’t seen her since.”

  Dulcie asked, “Buckle bunnies?”

  “That’s what some folks call girls who hang around rodeo cowboys,” Reed told her. “Kind of like rodeo groupies, I guess. You can see ’em strutting around in tight clothes by the ready area during the rodeo. That’s where the cowboys get ready to ride.”

  When he realized what he’d said, Reed turned to Joe and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  “Buckle bunnies,” Dulcie repeated, shaking her head.

  “When was the last time Dallas was with her?” Reed asked.

  “Oh, it’s been a while.”

  This was all news to Joe, but he kept his promise to Reed and Marybeth and didn’t speak. As far as he and his wife knew, April had been with Dallas since she’d left months ago. The idea of April traveling with a pack of girls from rodeo to rodeo—being known as a buckle bunny—made his stomach lurch.

  “What is ‘a while’?” Reed asked Eldon.

  The man looked back at him dully, then turned his head toward Brenda. Joe saw her nod quickly to him, as if prodding him on.

  “A few weeks, I guess. A while. I don’t know,” Eldon said.

  “He’ll be able to tell us?” Reed asked.
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  “I’m sure he will,” Eldon said.

  “So how long has he been home with you after his injury?”

  “’Bout a week,” Eldon said. Then something went even deader in his face. Brenda glared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “A week?” Joe asked. “I thought I heard you say it was a couple of days.”

  Eldon didn’t even move his head when Joe spoke.

  “Joe,” Reed said, “we had a deal. I ask the questions.”

  Joe looked to the sheriff with an exasperated Then ask them look. Dulcie carefully observed Eldon and Brenda Cates.

  “Which is it, then?” Reed said. “A couple of days or a week? It’s important that we know.”

  He didn’t go on, but Joe thought everyone in the room knew what he was saying. If Dallas had been home a week, that meant he’d been injured during the first few days of the Houston Rodeo and was at home recovering while April was . . . out there somewhere. But if he’d just returned home the day before, he could have had April with him. Until he didn’t.

  Brenda put her hand on Eldon’s thigh. It shut him up. She took over. She said, “Do you know why some people call my husband ‘Snake’ when his real first name is Eldon?”

  “No,” Reed said, “but I don’t know what that has to do with this.”

  “They call him Snake because he has a strange gift for being bitten by rattlers,” she said. Brenda had a husky voice, but it was smooth and convincing, Joe thought. “How many times have you been bitten by rattlesnakes, Eldon?” she asked her husband.

  After a long pause, Eldon said, “I don’t remember. Seven, maybe eight times.”

  “Nine times,” Brenda corrected him, then looked from Joe to Reed to Dulcie with wide-open eyes to hammer home her point. “Six times since we’ve been married. We don’t know what it is, or why it is. Whether Eldon has some kind of smell that attracts poisonous snakes or what. But if three men are walking across a pasture and one of them gets bit—it’s Eldon. I don’t know how many times he’s been out hunting with clients or on a septic tank job when he calls me on the radio and says, ‘Brenda, I got bit again.’ So I drop whatever I’m doing and take him to the hospital for treatment. But the thing is, all that venom has affected his memory. He can’t remember days or dates anymore. So when he says Dallas has been home for a day or a week, well, you can’t really believe him.”

  She turned to Eldon and said, “Sorry. I had to tell them.”

  He didn’t react.

  Brenda looked directly at Joe and said, “Dallas used to love that girl of yours. Eldon and I met her at the National Finals in Las Vegas last year and the two of them couldn’t have been happier. That’s the kind of boy he is: Dallas bought our plane tickets and put us up in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Eldon hadn’t been on a plane in years.

  “You should have seen them together, Mr. Pickett. He doted on her. Just doted on her. They were like the Barbie and Ken of the rodeo set. Now, I don’t know what happened between them. Dallas doesn’t talk about things like that. I know she watched him like a hawk when other girls were around. He told me once she got real jealous for no reason, and he thought she was smothering him. Dallas has always been the social type, and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate that very much. I think that’s why he broke it off with her, that jealousy. I’m guessing she didn’t take it well at all. I’m just speculating, but I’m a pretty good observer of human nature. April is as fierce as she is good-looking, and I can’t see her just shrugging her shoulders and moving on.”

  Joe shook his head, not understanding. Dulcie picked up his cue.

  “Did April try to get back at him somehow?” she asked.

  “Oh, he never told me anything like that,” Brenda said. “But I think the breakup affected him. It happened just before Houston, which is probably why his head wasn’t in the game and he got bucked off and hurt so bad.”

  “So it was April’s fault?” Joe asked. He’d once again broken his agreement by speaking up, and Reed gave him a disapproving look.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Brenda said, looking aghast. “I just meant that he didn’t ride with the kind of total confidence and concentration he’s known for. You can watch the tape of it and see for yourself. I’m not blaming that poor girl for anything at all.”

  “So he came home alone,” Reed broke in. “Did you two pick him up at the airport?”

  “He drove,” Eldon said.

  “He drove back from Houston with broken ribs?” Joe asked, incredulous.

  He noted that Brenda again gripped Eldon’s thigh with her hand. This time, she appeared to be applying real pressure, but the man looked ahead stoically.

  “Like a lot of boys around here, Dallas has a thing about his pickup,” Brenda said. “He’d never leave it, no matter what. He never likes to be without it. Even if he was dying, he’d drive. Imagine how tough that kid must be. He drove from Houston to Saddlestring all alone with broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. I don’t know how he did it.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows and caught Dulcie’s eye. The dislocated shoulder was new information. She’d caught it also.

  “Which arm is dislocated?” she asked Brenda.

  “His left, thank goodness,” Brenda said. “That’s because he has to grip that bull with his right hand. So he’ll still be able to do that.”

  Joe visualized the act he’d seen many times. Bull riders lowered themselves carefully into a steel chute filled with a two-thousand-pound animal. Often, the bull was so big there was barely enough clearance on either side of it for the cowboy to mount it. A flanking strap lined with lamb’s wool was cinched to the rear quarters of the bull with an easy-release snap. After the cowboy had jammed his gloved hand into the opening of his bull rope, which was cinched around the middle of the bull, the gate was opened. It was a common misconception that the flanking strap was attached to the bull’s genitals, when it wasn’t at all. As much as trying to get the rider off its back, the bull was just as concerned about ridding himself of the flanking strap, which was alternately pulled tight and released and served as an irritant. It took a tremendous amount of upper-body strength and balance for a rider to stay on the bull while it spun, twisted, and bucked.

  That kind of upper-body strength, Joe knew, could produce a hell of a beating.

  “So how long has he been home?” Reed asked them.

  “Three days, two nights,” Brenda said with finality. “And from what I understand from your deputies, poor April was just found this morning. And since she definitely wasn’t with us, that means she got here with someone else.”

  She pushed the bulk of her weight forward on the chair and leaned across the desk toward Reed.

  She said to the sheriff, “I hope you find whoever did it and put that man in a cage. And if he resists arrest and gets himself shot in the process, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. Dallas feels the same way.”

  “Then where is he?” Joe asked. “Why isn’t he here now?”

  Brenda’s eyes flashed when she turned to Joe. There was real anger there, and it surprised him.

  “Eldon is right,” she said. “You people look down on folks like us. I see it all the time. When Eldon and Bull take their pump truck out, the property owners act like it’s their fault they’re swimming in their own feces. I saw it when I talked to your wife in the library about supporting our effort to recognize the fact that this town produced a national champion bull rider named Dallas Cates. She just looked at me and nodded her head like she couldn’t wait for me to leave and go back to whatever rock I crawled out from under. And I could see you all setting a trap for that poor kid and putting him in your jail. That’s why Eldon and I came down here. We wanted to set the record straight before you jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  She narrowed her eyes and said, “Dallas was at home when April was beat up and dumped o
utside of town. She fell in with the wrong crowd. That wasn’t his fault. He’d be here right now if he was healthy enough to drive into town with us. I know you’re thinking that if he drove here all the way from Houston then he should be able to drive the twenty miles from our place, but it isn’t like that. Dallas is the toughest kid you’ll ever meet. He gritted his teeth and drove all the way from Houston in terrible pain, but he didn’t let it get to him until he was home and safe. It’s like he stored up all that pain and waited to let it hit him, and it has now. With all of his injuries and maybe months of recuperating ahead of him, Dallas fought the pain and drove all the way back here to a town that refuses to appreciate anything he’s accomplished.”

  To Joe, it was a tour de force of smoke and misdirection. Reed was right. Brenda had coached Eldon on what to say, but Eldon had fouled it up so she had to step in and take over. Brenda was running the show and she no doubt ran the family. Now he knew what he was dealing with.

  “Even in his condition, he wanted to come into town with us and see April,” Brenda said, tears forming in her eyes. “He wanted to make sure she was okay, but I told him to stay.”

  “Why?” Dulcie asked her.

  “Because I know how you people could stack the deck against him,” Brenda said, narrowing her eyes again. “He’s on pain meds and you could get him to say something and twist it back around on him later.”

  “We’d never do that,” Reed said defensively.

  “He would,” Brenda said, pointing at Joe. “I saw how he railroaded Bull right out of our outfitting business.”

  Joe said, “I caught him and Cora Lee with a dead six-by-six elk in the back of his pickup three days before the season opener. How is that railroading?”

  Brenda Cates ignored the question, and this time Reed didn’t glare at Joe for talking.