Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Mason
I stepped into the conference room behind Ron, seeing Jackson already waiting inside. Ron was a big fan of my young deputy, and I was, too, but I couldn’t help but wonder why he had been chosen to be in the room as well.
Because the look on Ron’s face was telling me this wasn’t a gas station candy theft.
“All right you two,” Ron began, shutting the door behind us. “For starters, have you had any reports of missing cattle?”
I furrowed my brow as I racked my brain. “The only thing we had recently was the cattle out that caused a vehicle accident—but everyone was fine. Cattle were returned, and I’m sure their insurance will be settling everything.”
Jackson nodded in agreement, but then stopped. “Actually… We haven’t had anything reported, but… I was down at t he café and there was some talk about a Bob Parson missing some cattle. I didn’t ask and I didn’t hear much. You know the size of the guy’s place. I figured they were just a little lost.”
I laughed, unable to hold back at the way the last few words came out of his mouth. However, Ron didn’t find a lick of humor in his words.
“Something is wrong,” he said, clearing his throat and ignoring me. “That’s what I’m saying. These ranchers aren’t reporting it, but I know of three different ranches that have cattle missing right now. They all wanna play it off like they’re just on the other side of the creek or something, but I think something big is happening.”
“We haven’t had any cattle rustling in over ten years.” I folded my arms over my chest, wishing I had gotten some coffee before I walked into this meeting. “Typically, there’s signs of it, too. You know, cut fences, truck and trailer tracks, or suspicious activity reported.”
“Maybe aliens took the cattle,” Jackson chuckled, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. “I mean, I have been watching that show?—”
“Shut up,” I warned Jackson, glaring at him. “Don’t start that shit in here.”
“Anyway,” Ron shook his head. “I got this map.” He turned around and picked up a rolled-up paper sitting beside his bag. “I’ll show y’all what I’m seeing.”
Jackson and I waited quietly as he laid it out across the dark wood of the conference table. My eyes scoured over it, realizing that it was a map of the county, complete with all the property lines… I squinted as I saw bold red marks, and then my stomach dropped.
What the hell ?
There was a big red “X” on the edge of the Lowe Creek Ranch—only a couple of miles from my cabin. If there were cattle missing from Lucas’s place, there was no doubt that he would’ve told me…
Maybe Ron is just finally losing his mind.
I mean, my mentor was over sixty now, but I quickly brushed it off. Ron was still sharper than most of the deputies that worked for me. However, I did peek over to Jackson, who for some reason… Didn’t look surprised at all.
“So Bob Parson is missing twenty heads here,” Ron pointed to the mark on the map. It was the farthest point to the north, sitting in the top right-hand corner of our rectangular shaped county.
“And that was almost a month ago…” Jackson commented, appearing perplexed. “I don’t get why he wouldn’t go ahead and report it at this point. I mean, if you ain’t found ‘em by now…”
“I don’t know why they’re not reporting them,” Ron said in a stiff voice. “But I’ve been pretty damn diligent about keeping my mouth shut with this. I wasn’t gonna bring it to your attention until I had more to go on, but after this morning…”
Jackson nodded. “Yeah, no kidding.”
I’m missing something.
“What happened this morning?” My gaze bounced between the two of them, while they just stared back at me.
“Lucas didn’t call you?” Ron blinked a couple times, his old gray eyes surprised. He had seen so much that I don’t think anything ever caught him off guard, so this was concerning.
“No one has called me this morning…” I shifted my weight to my heels and then back to the toes of my boots, growing more and more uneasy. “What the hell happened? ”
“I was meaning to tell him, but I hadn’t gotten a chance,” Jackson said to Ron, shrugging his shoulders. “You saw that he just got here. I wasn’t gonna radio it over, either. Lucas doesn’t want to report it until he can be sure.”
My stomach knotted up. “How many cattle is he missing?” Something told me by the grave expression on both Jackson and Ron’s faces that this was big.
Ron was the one to answer. “Over a hundred heads.”
I shook my head, shock filtering through my body. “That would’ve taken a damn semi-truck to pull that off. The whole world would’ve heard it.”
Jackson pursed his lips, and then took an audible deep breath. “Unless it maybe happened in the middle of a loud ass BBQ and dance.”
“I think that’s entirely plausible,” Ron agreed with Jackson.
“Does he have any idea where they went missing?” I asked, still just stuck on the massive loss that would be for Lucas. It was thousands of dollars that just… disappeared.
“He said they were in the bottom pasture on the other side of the creek,” Jackson answered, rocking back in his chair. “And based on this morning, they’re working on double checking all of the fence lines.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod, my chest suddenly burning with irritation. Why didn’t Lucas call me? Hell, I worked at the ranch when I wasn’t at the station. I would’ve dispatched deputies to help him look…
“I know that you’re probably bent out of shape over him not telling you,” Ron began, giving me a knowing glance. “But he’s trying real hard not to jump the gun and make assumptions. He said there’s a chance they got into one of the other pastures—and that’s what he’s checking right now. But based on what I already know… ”
“Yeah, it makes sense,” I agreed with my mentor. “I think you have a good map setup here. I just don’t understand—a hundred head of cattle ain’t no tiny load. It would’ve been multiple trucks and trailers or an overloaded semi. Not to mention, it rained a few days ago. I’d think there’d be some kind of marks showing up.”
“That’s where you’ve got me,” Ron said with a heavy sigh. “I searched around the roads that butt up to the pasture. There ain’t nothing there. I couldn’t find a single sign of anyone loading out—and you know, you’d have to set up temporary corrals in order to catch and load that many.”
“But for all we know…” Jackson’s voice trailed off. “Maybe they did. However they’re doing it, it must be efficient—and it’s not their first time.” He pointed to the other red marks on the page. “There are fifteen head missing, ten head missing, twenty head missing… It’s almost like they were putting in practice for this one,” he pointed to Lucas’s place. “And I still think it had to have happened last night.”
“Or this could all be a waste, and they just got into another pasture. I know that the interior fencing on the ranch could stand to have some improvement,” I countered, playing the devil’s advocate. Honestly, I agreed with Jackson, but there was the freak chance that every single cow got through the fence.
“You know as well as I do that the fence would’ve had to just disappear for every single head to be missing,” Ron said what I was just thinking. “Lucas is in denial about it, but I told him he needs to report it so he can turn it into his insurance.”
I nodded, though something tugged at my brain. I knew Lucas better than anyone, and I just had a bad gut feeling about this entire scenario. “I think I’m gonna go out to the ranch and see what’s going on. ”
“Not before we have a plan of attack for this,” Ron grunted, giving me that mentor look. “I get that you wanna run out and get answers from Lucas since your feelings are hurt, but he’s not the only one missing cattle.”
“But he’s missing four times as many as most of them,” I argued.
“Yeah, but everyone matters,” Ron chided me. “And once we have something figured out, then you can run off and do that.”
“Okay, so why don’t we dispatch some deputies to each of the missing cattle locations? We’ll make official reports. You know that we can’t do anything if there’s no report,” I said, removing my cowboy hat and running my fingers through my dark hair. It was tangled, and for a moment, my mind flashed to the hook up with Emma—the one that had her storming off like I was gonna ruin her life…
But I wasn’t planning on telling anyone anything.
“I’ve tried to get Bob Parson, Landon Henderson, and Derek Johnson to file reports,” Ron pointed to three of the marks. “But none of them will. They’re concerned about the backlash—and none of them had insurance on their cattle.”
“That can’t be a coincidence…” Jackson’s voice trailed off, and I could see the wheels turning in his head before he looked up at me. “Can people find out stuff like that?”
“With the right connections, maybe.” I drummed my fingers on the table, trying to piece together why the hell these ranchers weren’t reporting their missing stock. I mean, yeah, it was pretty common for them to search high and low for them first, just to make sure they weren’t jumping the gun, but to not say anything at all—and then deny the offer to report it…
That was just weird.
“Have any of them been checking the local sales to see if the cattle were sold at auction?” Jackson asked the obvious question that no one had yet.
“Yeah, they have,” Ron said, his eyes still glued to the map. “And he said he hasn’t come up with anything. But you know, you can’t make every single cattle auction and none of these were branded. You would’ve had to go off ear tags and markings. That’s a lot harder to prove.”
“Lucas’s all have brands,” I thought aloud, the LC brand on every single head. “It’s well known, too. I don’t see a rustler being able to sell a hundred head of them and not raise some questions.”
“They could illegally haul them out of state,” Jackson reasoned, shrugging. “It’s not that unheard of for something like that to happen. I don’t know how they’d manage it in a semi-truck… But there are backroads that will take you right out of Texas. They could’ve easily hauled up to Oklahoma. There’re a lot of small livestock auctions. Could’ve spread them out.”
“Ballsy move—and a lot of work,” I commented.
“But not undoable.” Ron’s voice was flat, his expression blank. “At this point, I think we have to think of all the possibilities. I don’t think this is a backwoods operation for getting some drug money.”
“Yeah, we need to reach out to surrounding counties and see if they’ve got any of the same problems.”
“I can get Macy on that,” Jackson said, speaking of one of the newer deputies. She was just learning the ropes—and lots of times, making all those phone calls was one of them.
“I only have one comment on that,” Ron cut in. “If the ranchers aren’t filing reports with us, they’re probably not filing reports with the other counties either.”
“Blackmail?” I threw out, meeting Ron’s gaze.
Ron chewed his bottom lip. “Something like that, I’d assume.”