Tags:
Fiction,
General,
Mystery & Detective,
Detective and Mystery Stories,
Mystery Fiction,
Police,
Police Procedural,
Cultural Heritage,
New Mexico,
Chee; Jim (Fictitious character),
Leaphorn; Joe; Lt. (Fictitious character),
Navajo Indians,
Police - New Mexico,
Indian Reservation Police
was unlocking the gate, swinging it open.
“Ibex?” Bernie asked. “The African antelope with the long horns? I thought the game department quit importing them.”
“That’s the oryx you were describing. The ibex is the goat out of the Morocco mountains. And, yeah, the Game Department decided importing them wasn’t worth the effort, but Tuttle wanted his friends to have African safaris without making the long trip. That’s what that big expensive fence is about.”
“To keep them in?”
O’day was grinning at her. “And keep you poachers out.”
Bernie drove her pickup through.
“Hold it a minute. I want to close this and then I’ll show you where he’ll be. It’s just about three miles but it’s easy to get lost.”
[54] Bernie had no doubt of that. O’day locked the gate, climbed into his truck, and headed down the tracks the green pickup had left.
By Bernie’s odometer it was a fraction less than four miles before she passed a taller than usual cluster of cacti and saw the truck with the green trailer parked with two other trucks—a flatbed and one towing a horse trailer. She had lagged far enough behind O’day’s pickup to avoid breathing his dust, but close enough to see he had done some talking on his cell phone during the trip. Probably telling any illegals who might be where they were headed that a cop was coming.
Three men were standing by the trucks as O’day drove up, apparently waiting. Fat chance of her seeing anything they didn’t want her to see. But then if they were smuggling illegals, where could they have hidden them?
O’day opened her truck door, inviting her out.
“Here we are,” he said. “And here is your smuggler. Colonel Abraham Gonzales of Seamless Welds Incorporated. And Mr. Gonzales, this young lady is Officer Manuelito of the U.S. Border Patrol.”
Gonzales bowed, tipped his cap, said: “Con mucho gusto, Señorita,” and produced one of those smiles that men of Gonzales’s age often display when meeting appealing young women. The side flaps of the trailer behind him were down, and Bernie could see racks of tools, pipes, hoses, and something that she guessed might be a motor of some sort—perhaps an air compressor, pump, or something. Beyond the trailer stood a much-weathered shack, its single room roofed and sided with corrugated metal sheeting, and its door hanging open. Beside the shack was a metal watering tank, and past it [55] three workmen stood beside a front-end loader parked beside the shack, occupied with looking at her. If she wanted to collect illegals, Bernie thought, at least two of those probably would qualify. Definitely the youngest one with the mustache now giving her a younger version of the Gonzales smile. His was the “come on, baby” leer.
Gonzales gestured toward the open side of his trailer. “No place in here to haul illegals,” he said. “But you’re welcome to take a look.”
“OK,” Bernie said. “But actually I misread your license plate. I thought it was a Canadian truck and maybe you were smuggling in maple syrup, or something like that.”
Gonzales considered that a moment and laughed. So did O’day, but his seemed genuine.
“I doubt if Mr. Gonzales has anything illegal in that trailer,” he said. “But maybe you ought to look. And I’ve got to get this crew back to work.”
“Doing what?” Bernie asked, walking to the trailer. “What are you building? Or digging?”
“We’re going to set up that windmill,” O’day said, pointing to a pile of framework beside the shack. “Going to have a little oasis here. Water tanks for the livestock and a place for Mr. Tuttle’s pets to get a drink.”
“Oryxs. Right? I’d like to see one of those.”
“Just take a look,” he said. “That’s a couple of them over yonder.” He pointed east toward the hills. “They’re waiting for us to go away so they can come in and see if there’s anything in the tank for them to drink. Trouble is, it’s about
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