Blanco County 03 - Flat Crazy (25 page)

Only problem, he’d forgotten his Altoids. He turned to the man next to him, a chubby guy in a business suit.

“You got a mint?”

“No, sorry,” the man said.

“Gum?”

“No.”

He’d have to buy some at the next stop.

“Where’re we going, anyway?” Gus asked.

“I wanted you to know I’m leaving tomorrow. This is outstanding, by the way.”

Marlin finished a bite of his dinner, then said, “Back to L.A.?”

Rudi frowned. “What, are you kidding? Not yet. No, I’m thinking Florida. I’ve always wanted to go to Key West, and I figure now’s as good a time as any. I can stop in New Orleans along the way, maybe poke around in Mississippi and Alabama. A nice slow tour along the Gulf. Get my head back together,
then
I can go back to L.A.”

Marlin took a drink of wine, giving himself time to think. What would she say if he said,
Mind if I come along?
He’d made that same drive himself a couple of times, but it had been many years ago.
I wonder if Sloppy Joe’s Bar is as much fun as it used to be.
People sometimes danced on the bar, and how could you not like a place like that?

But he couldn’t just up and leave, could he? He had things to take care of around here. On the other hand, he
did
have a lot of vacation time piled up. He was starting to feel a nice connection with Rudi, and he hated to see it end so quickly.

“When I do go back home, I’ll be coming right through Texas again,” Rudi said.

Marlin nodded. “Interstate Ten.”

“Which goes right through San Antonio … and I was wondering … you ever been to the Riverwalk?”

He woke sometime in the middle of the night and didn’t bother to look at the clock. From his side of the bed, looking through the east window, Marlin could see the moon just climbing over the trees.

Rudi stirred beside him, and he placed his hand on her flat belly. She covered his hand with hers and, as she woke, began to rub his calf with one of her feet.

He rolled onto his side and slipped his hand down her hip, along her outer thigh. Her breathing had become deep and slow.

After a moment, she placed a hand on his shoulder and gently rolled him onto his back, nuzzling his neck as she climbed on top.

32

MARLIN WOULD BE asked, several days later, to recount the details of the next morning in painstaking detail. Some of it was fuzzy, but he remembered exactly how it had started.

At about eight-thirty, while Rudi was in the shower and Marlin was making pancakes, he heard a loud knock on his door. Geist barked and ran to look out the window. Marlin opened the door and saw a boy standing on the porch, a bike lying in the yard behind him.

The kid was maybe eleven or twelve, wearing a thin jacket and blue jeans, breathing hard. “Are you the game warden?” he asked.

Marlin said he was.

“The chupacabra,” the boy announced. “It’s in a trap behind my house.”

* * *

Most of the out-of-town morons had given up on the chupacabra, but Red still had faith. After all, you couldn’t always believe what a government employee told you. Just because the game warden had talked to some news reporter, swearing up and down that the chupacabra didn’t exist, that didn’t mean he was telling the truth. Red could almost smell a conspiracy. It would be just like the government to try to cover this thing up, but Red was smart enough to see through it.

He emerged from his bedroom, to find Billy Don on the sofa, watching some dumb game show. Apparently, a housewife from Arkansas was trying to win a new washer-dryer combo. Yippee. Maybe she could quit washing her clothes in the creek, or turn around and sell the damn things so she could afford some dental work. She looked like she needed it.

Red eased himself down into the La-Z-Boy. “You ’bout ready to go check the trap?”

Billy Don gave him a look. “Think it’s safe?”

Sheesh.
Red hated the way Billy Don always worried about shit, afraid to take a chance every now and then. “Guess we’ll just have to go and see for ourselves, won’t we?”

Yesterday, right after they’d seen the helicopter, a whole convoy of patrol cars, ambulances, and the like had come streaming down Flat Creek Road and pulled into the Macho Bueno Ranch. Later on, Red found out why. The ranch’s owner had been found dead, right there on his ranch, which was awful damn inconvenient. Red and Billy Don hadn’t been able to check the trap all day. Now, though, Red figured all the official hubbub would be done with and they could sneak back onto the place.

Red stood. “C’mon now. Get your boots on.”

“Gimme a minute, will ya? She’s about to win a Maytag.”

Duke wasn’t what he’d call worried. More like puzzled. Had Gus really gone for good? And where exactly would that simpleton have gone anyway?

Duke had spent the night at the old homestead, as he had for the last week or so. He’d expected Gus to come home sometime in the night, or to at least call. But nothing. It made Duke a little uneasy not to be keeping tabs on Gus, but maybe it was better this way, Duke not having to watch after his brother all the time. It could be a real pain in the ass. Let somebody else worry about him for a while, maybe a mental institution, which was where he was likely to end up.

Duke swung out of bed and went straight to the refrigerator, hoping for some cold pizza or a leftover breakfast taco. All he found was beer, a jar of hot sauce, and an unidentifiable ball of moldy fuzz in a Tupperware container.

Sally Ann’s place was a quarter of a mile down the road, and she always had something good in the fridge. What the hell, he’d hoof it down there and check it out. Sally Ann would be at work, so he wouldn’t have to deal with her. But maybe—if he was feeling charitable—he’d leave a nice lovey-dovey note, see if he could get back on her good side. Now that everything had blown over, Duke was ready to make nice and start getting laid again.

Deputy Ernie Turpin was at his desk when Bill Tatum buzzed him.

“What are you doing right this minute?” Tatum asked.

“Not a whole hell of a lot. Putting paperwork in order so the Rangers can—”

“I need you to go down to San Antonio. Our boy is waking up.”

“The trucker?”

“Yep, and I want you and Cowan down there.”

“Leave now?”

“Right now.”

“Slow down a minute, son,” Marlin said, stepping out onto the porch. The kid was wide-eyed and excited, shifting from one leg to the other, like he had to take a pee. “Just take it easy and tell me what you saw.”

The boy nodded. “There’s a hog trap on the ranch behind my house, and, uh, I went out to check it this morning before school and I saw this animal in it. I’ve seen it before. It has a huge head and lots of teeth, and I figured it had to be the chupacabra, because I’ve never seen nothing like it.”

“Where do you live?”

“Over on Flat Creek Road.”

Well, of course you do,
Marlin thought. Everything had happened on Flat Creek Road so far. Why should this be any different? “Which ranch are you talking about?” he asked.

“It’s got a green gate, and I think a man named Kyle owns it.” Once more, all roads led to Kyle Dawson’s place. The boy was getting excited again. “But we have to hurry, because I think they’re gonna shoot it.”

“Who’s gonna shoot it?”

“The men who set the trap.”

Marlin wanted to ask more questions, but the youngster was obviously agitated and ready to lead him to the trap. Marlin figured the boy would calm down on the drive over to Flat Creek. “Wait right here.”

Marlin stepped inside, donned his uniform, and told Rudi, who was dripping wet and had a towel wrapped around her hair, that he’d be back in an hour or two. She said she’d wait.

Mary, Queen of Scotch, we’ve done it!
Red thought.

There was something in the trap! Not a damn hog this time, or a coyote or badger or any damn thing like that. This was something wild and nasty, with a God-awful muzzle and a head the size of … well, something pretty damn big.

Billy Don was breathing heavily, eyes wide; unable to even speak at this point. They were seventy yards from the trap, downwind, hunkered low in the brush, and the animal hadn’t spotted them yet.

“Gimme the binoculars!” Red hissed.

Billy Don passed them over.

Red glassed the animal, and he was … confused. This beast didn’t look anything like he’d expected. It wasn’t a freaking lizard or flying monkey at all. He and Billy Don had even gone to the Johnson City Library, which turned out to be a nice place, and located some drawings of the chupacabra. Those people had it all wrong. This animal didn’t have big alien eyes or wings or spikes along the ridge of its back. But it was just as scary, looking huge and pissed off as he peered at it through the binoculars.

“What ya think?” Red asked, passing the binoculars to Billy Don.

The big man took a look and gave a shudder. “Thing’s a damn monster!”

“Yeah, yeah, it is.”

“So what the hell do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, are
you
gonna walk right up to that thing? I know
I’m
not.”

“Well, we sure as shit don’t want to shoot it, not unless we have to. Worth more alive than dead.”

“What, then?”

“Just give me a damn minute, Billy Don. Lemme think.” Red put his powerful mind to work, sorted through the possibilities—and then he had it! “What we need,” he said triumphantly, “is a tranquillity gun.”

“Tranquilizer gun?”

“Exactly!”

But the only person they could think of who would have one was John Marlin. Red wasn’t about to fool around with him. Then he remembered someone else.

Duke’s key still worked, and he took that as a good sign. If Sally Ann had written him off, she would’ve changed the locks. As he expected, nobody was home.

He found some fried chicken in the fridge, and he ate it cold, chasing it down with a couple of beers. He threw the bones in the trash and grabbed another beer. It was nice to sit and drink a cold one in peace and quiet, no worries hanging over him. Gus was gone, Kyle was dead, and nobody on earth could pin him to the murder of Oliver Searcy.

He stretched out on the couch, feeling a nap coming on.

All it took was one phone call—Red acting all excited, giving a fake address on the west side of Blanco, saying he had a genuine king cobra in his swimming pool—“Hurry! It’s flaring its damn neck at me!”—and Trey Sweeney said he’d be right there.

When they got to Sweeney’s place, sure enough, the biologist was gone. He’d even left his front door unlocked. Billy Don went inside (Red had to explain to him the importance of a lookout man, of course) and in less than five minutes he returned with a hard-sided gun case. Inside was a tranquilizer gun and equipment.

Moments later, they were back at the ranch. The first time through the gate that morning, they had discovered that the sheriff’s department was no longer content with a sign warning people to keep out. Now there were wooden police barriers, which Billy Don had dragged to the side earlier.

“Want me to close ’em behind us?” Billy Don asked.

“Naw, we’ll be outta here in no time. Get your rain gear on. Tops and bottoms.”

“It ain’t raining.”

“No, for the camo, dumbass. I don’t want that creature seeing us and flipping out. Grab those camo hats, too.”

Red pulled off the road into a grove of cedar trees, hiding his truck as well as he could, just in case a deputy came by.

“You bringing your gun, too?” Billy Don asked.

“Damn right.”

They dressed themselves in camo, then test-fired the tranquilizer gun at a stump. Easy as pie. Ol’ Trey Sweeney had even left an instruction manual in the gun case. Red slipped his Colt Anaconda into a holster on his hip, and then they began a slow stalk through the woods.

Now, knowing what was waiting for them in the trap, every stick they stepped on and every stone they stumbled over seemed to make a noise that was ten times louder than it should have been.

They moved at an excruciatingly slow pace, circling around to the south to keep the wind in their faces. Finally, nearly fifteen minutes later, the trap came into view.

Red hoisted the binoculars. “I think it’s sleeping,” he whispered.

Billy Don nodded. “What now?”

It was an agonizing moment for Red. What he
wanted
to do was hand the tranquilizer gun to Billy Don and tell him to go get the job done. But Red knew Billy Don was about as stealthy as a gut-shot cow. He couldn’t sneak up on the chupacabra even if it was deaf and blind. No, the sad truth was, Red would have to do it.

“You wait here,” he said, but Billy Don was already finding a hiding spot in some brush.

Red crouched low and began to approach the trap, one hand clutching the tranquilizer gun, the other pinning the binoculars to his chest, keeping them from swinging.

At fifty yards, he could clearly see that the animal was lying down on the floor of the trap.

At forty yards, he could make out its backside. Perfect. The animal was facing away from him. Even if its eyes were open, it wouldn’t see him coming.

At thirty yards, Red realized his hands were trembling and sweat was running down the sides of his face.
Gotta get my shit together,
he thought.
This is a million-dollar shot.

Then, at twenty yards, he heard a wonderful sound. The chupacabra was snoring. Deep, rhythmic snorts with each incoming breath.

Red froze for a moment. Should he try to get closer? Or take a shot from here? Considering his shaky condition, he decided he wanted as short a shot as possible.

He took another step, and then another. His own breathing sounded like a windstorm. He could feel and
hear
his heart thudding in his chest. His mouth was as dry as a flattened frog baking on a road in the August sun.

One last step. He’d shoot from here, fifteen yards away. He felt a little dizzy, light-headed.

He didn’t waste any time. He lifted the rifle, took a deep breath, squeezed the trigger … and the sound of the dart whooshing out of the barrel nearly made Red soil his camo.

“You ever seen a wild hog?” Marlin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did this animal look anything like that?”

The boy, whose name was Riggs, looked small and nervous over in the passenger seat. He kept glancing through the rear window to make sure his bike was okay in the back. “No, sir, this was something different.”

“You’ve seen a coyote?”

“Yeah, a lot of times. It’s not a coyote.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How about a bobcat?”

“I’ve seen pictures, but this ain’t one of those.”

“Tell me exactly what it looks like,” Marlin said.

“Like some kind of weird dog. It’s got spots all over it.”

That could be a hyena,
Marlin thought.
It could also be a Dalmatian.
He hoped this boy wasn’t wasting his time.

“What color was it?”

“Mostly brown. Except for the spots. Those are black.”

Back at the house, Marlin had been tempted to show Charlie a photo of a hyena, but he was afraid Charlie would automatically say, yeah, that’s it. Now that Charlie had described it, though, Marlin removed the photo from his shirt pocket. “Does it look like this?”

Charlie sat up straight. “Yeah, that’s it! Definitely.”