Fourteen
John joined the small group after a few minutes. He’d seen the vet in the barn and spoken to him. His face was thunderous.
“I’m sorry,” John said to Velasquez. “Do I know you?”
“My name is Eduardo Duarte,” he introduced himself and shook hands with John. “I run purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle on my
hacienda in Mexico.”
“Do you know what’s going on with the calves?” he asked with an angry glance toward Josie, whom he had become warm toward
and now regretted.
“Yes, we do,” Josie said, “and whoever did it should be shot!”
“We have a slight complication,” Cole told John.
“What sort of complication?” he wanted to know.
“Something we shouldn’t discuss in company,” Velasquez said.
“Even very pleasant company,” he added with a warm smile at Josie, which caused John to look like a thunderstorm about to come down.
Josie didn’t need a road map to understand why he said that.
Velasquez was deliberately distancing her from the actual matter of drug smuggling, so that John didn’t get suspicious.
She wished she could thank him, but she didn’t dare try.
Cole took Velasquez and John aside. Velasquez explained to John what was going on. John was furious. “You should have the
sheriff arrest him right now,” John fumed.
“We can’t do that,” Cole said, having just spoken with Marlowe. “And I can’t explain why we can’t do that,” he added.
“That’s what I love about you, Dad,” John said. “No wonder I believed in Santa Claus until I was fourteen!”
Velasquez chuckled. So did Cole.
“Anyway,” Cole said, “we’ve got it all in hand. Just grit your teeth and go along with it.”
John said, “It’s not like I have a choice. Do we have any suspects?” John asked with a pointed glance at Josie, because where
he’d first met her was the pasture where the bull calves had been kept.
“Well,” Velasquez volunteered. “We do have a suspect, but we require proof in order to turn him over to your sheriff. I hope
to provide this in the near future. My ranch is not so modern as yours. However, my love for cattle is comparable,” he said
with a smile.
“And we have to get the cattle seen to before they’re turned over to his man, Raines,” Cole replied.
“Which means that I must find an excuse for Raines to take delivery of them in a few days,” Velasquez said, already planning how to keep Raines away from them before the big shipment went through.
It wouldn’t do for Raines to find out that he’d been betrayed before he got the shipment past the authorities and this would take skill, which, sadly, Raines had.
It would be walking a tightrope. There were also rumors that Vega was interested in this shipment and might have approached Raines.
That was something Velasquez would have to watch.
He had informants who would tip him off if anything unexpected interfered with his plans.
But then, Velasquez was up to it. He already knew that Raines would sell him out for profit.
“I’ll make sure that our foreman knows to do this, and I’ll give you his phone number so that you can contact him directly,”
Cole told Velasquez. “The family will be in New York because my daughter is performing for the Metropolitan Opera.”
“Such an honor,” Velasquez said with sincerity. “I love opera. My favorite is Turandot, as sung by Placido Domingo.”
“That’s the opera Odalie is performing,” Cole interjected.
“Wonderful! However, I have found very few operas that I did not enjoy, and I have had the pleasure of seeing them in New
York City at the Metropolitan Opera. Your daughter is indeed honored. I hope one day to see her in costume on stage.”
“Thank you,” Cole said.
“In the meantime, take care.” He smiled at Josie. “And I hope to see you again one day,” he added with faint sadness.
She felt the same sadness. Ships passing in the night, she thought, although she felt no real attraction to him in the way
of a man and a woman. But he was like a friend, like a very close friend.
He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it with grace and style as only a Latino could do, with both charm and respect.
“It has been the experience of a lifetime, senorita,” he said softly. “Dios te bendiga,” he added.
“Igualmente,” she replied.
Cole escorted Velasquez down to the barn where he would give him the name and phone number of the cattle foreman, so that
he could arrange for his calves to be picked up. Both men were still fuming about the drugs in the cattle’s stomachs. Only
after the vet reassured Velasquez that there had been no apparent leakage did he calm down enough to be rational. Cole was
impressed by the man’s humanity. A person who cared so much about cattle would care identically about human beings, or so
he thought.
Meanwhile John was very uncomfortable at the way Velasquez had taken leave of Josie and made it known to her that he would miss her. It rankled.
She was fascinated by his jealousy. It was the first time in her life she remembered any man ever being jealous of her. Of
course, she had spent very little time around men. Her father’s bad example had shattered her life and made her standoffish
when it came to any kind of intimate relationship. But when she was around John she felt very different. He was strong and
handsome and very intelligent, all traits that she admired. But he was looking at her in a different way since the drugs had
been found in the calves’ stomachs.
“What a coincidence,” he said, “that the very bulls you were watching in my pasture the day we met were the calves that contained
the drugs.”
She almost held her breath; this was unexpected, and disturbing. He had every right to be suspicious of her, but the way he
was looking at her was not the way she wanted him to look. Maybe you’ve mistaken jealousy for contempt, she told herself. Surely, he wasn’t jealous of a woman who was already in trouble with the law and had a bad past that he
knew little about.
A day later, everyone was packing for New York. John tugged Josie out into the backyard by the hand and paused under a Mesquite
tree.
“You remember what I said,” he told her quietly. “Phillip James is still after Tanner and he’s really mad. Tanner has turned
in enough evidence to hang him. We hope it’s going to be enough. But meanwhile, anyone connected to the family, anyone at
all, is in danger. That includes you,” he said, tapping her nose with a big finger.
“Aw, gee, thanks for caring,” she mused, grinning.
He tugged her close and kissed the life out of her.
For a long time neither of them spoke. He hugged her and just stood holding her in the crisp air, while he tried to understand how she’d taken possession of him in such a short period of time.
He knew he should be cautious. He knew that she wasn’t what she seemed.
But it didn’t matter anymore. He was well and truly hooked and he didn’t want to go to New York. But he could not let Odalie down.
Meanwhile Raines was back. He was upset that he wasn’t able to load up the purebred bulls and move them off the Big Spur.
But Josie managed to calm him down by saying that there was a suspicion of disease and he certainly didn’t want to risk them
while they were sick.
He worried aloud that a veterinarian might discover something that he shouldn’t.
Josie asked, “What does that mean?”
He replied, “The boss told me something that I’m not allowed to share. Meanwhile, the two of us are supposed to get on a plane
within the next couple of days and fly down to the border. The big shipment is being assembled as we speak and will soon be
ready to move. We will pose as a husband and wife truck driving team and the drugs will be disguised in a way that no one
would suspect.”
Josie had seen every kind of way in the world that drugs could be disguised, but she didn’t mention this. She said okay and
to just let her know when it was time to go.
JJ was curious about the steers that were being doctored by the vet. Josie hugged him and told him not to worry about things
and that it was all under control. He said he hoped it wasn’t anything he’d done to make them sick because he’d actually given
one of the little bulls a handful of corn when nobody was looking.
Josie laughed and told him of course it wasn’t his fault. They just had tummy problems, and it was going to be taken care
of very soon.
They watched movies until bedtime. Josie had just turned out the lights and climbed under the covers when her burner phone rang. Her burner phone that only Sheriff Marlowe had the number for. Well, Raines had it, too . . .
Her heart raced as she said hello.
There was a pause. “It’s Raines,” he said quickly. “We need to get to the airport in the next ten minutes to make our flight.”
She was half-asleep. She blinked. “Our flight.”
“Yes, our flight!” he said. “We’re heading for Mexico. Things are in motion. Bring your gun. I’ll pick you up at the ranch
house.”
“What do I tell the Everetts?” she asked sleepily, her brain not really working yet.
“Tell them that our eccentric buyer for the land is coming in very shortly, and we both have to meet him. Then we’re going
to a motel to have a meal and sit down and talk about the property.”
“When do I tell them that I’ll be back?” she asked worriedly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll tell you when I find out. Don’t keep me waiting.”
He hung up.
Josie got out of bed and immediately phoned the sheriff on her burner phone. When he answered, he was wide-awake, even though
the hour was after midnight. “Hello,” he said roughly.
“You’re still up,” she said, surprised.
“I don’t sleep much,” he said.
She knew he’d been in the service, and she was equally sure that he wasn’t going to talk about it. But there must have been
terrible things that he had to see and had to live with afterward, like most military people did.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but Raines just called and said we’re on our way to Mexico in about twenty minutes.”