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Gabe looked from Jim to Theo as if to say, "What the hell?"
"I'll explain later, Gabe. I have something I have to show you anyway. " Theo pushed Jim Beer's Stetson back so he could see the rancher's face. "So Burton gave you the money so he could use your land for the lab. "
"Sheriff Burton?" Gabe asked, totally confused now.
"Shut up, Gabe," Theo snapped.
"Not all of the money. Payments. Hell, what could I do? My grandfather started this ranch. I couldn't sell off half of it. "
"So you went into drug dealing?"
"I ain't never even seen this lab you're talking about. Neither have my hands. That part of the ranch is off-limits. Burton said he had you in the cabin to keep anyone from coming in the back gate. I just run my cattle and mind my own business. I never even asked Burton what he was doing out there. "
"There million dollars! What the hell did you think he was doing? Raising rabbits?"
Jim Beer didn't answer, he just stared at the ground between his legs. Gabe held his shoulder to steady him and looked to Theo. "Maybe finish this later, Theo?"
Theo turned and walked in a tight circle, waving his hands in the air as if chasing away annoying spirits.
"You okay?" Gabe asked.
"What the fuck do I do now? What do I do? What am I supposed to do?"
"Calm down?" Gabe ventured.
"Fuck that! I got murders, drug manufacturing, some fucking giant animal of some kind, a whole town that's gone nuts, my car is mashed, and I have a crush on a crazy woman - I don't have the training for this! No one has the fucking training for this!"
"So calming down isn't an option right now?" Gabe said. "I understand. " Theo interrupted his anxiety Tilt-A-Whirl and wheeled on Gabe. "And I haven't smoked any pot in a week, Gabe. "
"Congratulations. "
"It's made me insane. It's ruined my life. "
"Come on, Theo, you never had a life. " Gabe immediately realized that perhaps he had chosen the wrong tack in consoling his friend.
"Yeah, there's that. " Theo strode to the red truck and punched the fender. "Ouch! Goddamn it!" He turned to Gabe again. "And I think I just broke my hand. "
"Mad cow disease worries me," Jim Beer said from his stupor of defeat.
"Shut up, Jim," Gabe said. "Theo has a gun. "
"Guns!" Theo shouted.
"I stand corrected," said Gabe. "You mentioned a giant animal?"
Theo massaged his temples as if trying to squeeze out a coherent thought.
After a few minutes, he walked to where Jim Beer was sitting and kneeled down in front of him. "Jim, I need you to pull it together for a second. " The rancher looked at Theo. Tears had traced the creases in his cheeks. "Jim, this never happened, okay? You haven't seen me and you haven't heard anything from this side of the ranch, okay? If Burton calls you, everything is standard operating procedure. You know nothing, you understand?"
"No, I don't understand. Am I going to jail?"
"I don't know that, Jim, but I do know that Burton finding out about this will only make it worse for every one. I need some time to figure some things out. If you help, I'll do my best to protect you, I promise. "
"Okay. " Beer nodded. "I'll do what you say. "
"Good, take Gabe's truck home. We'll pick it up in an hour or so. "
Skinner watched all this with heightened interest, tentatively wagging his tail between Theo's tirades, hoping in his heart of hearts that he would get a ride in that big red truck. Even dogs harbor secret agendas.
"Theo, these can't be real," Gabe said, running his hand over a footprint nearly three feet across. "This is some sort of hoax. Although the depth of the claw impressions and the scuffing would indicate that whoever did this really knows something about how animals move. "
Theo was fairly calm now, as if he had settled into the whole unreality of the situation. "And they know something about crushing a Volvo too. They're real, Gabe. I've seen a track like this before. "
"Where?"
"By the creek, the night the fuel truck blew up. I didn't want to believe it then either. "
Gabe looked up from the track. "That's the night I had the mass exodus with my rats. "
"Yep. "
"There's no way, Theo. That couldn't be what happened. A creature that could leave tracks like this would dwarf a T. Rex. There hasn't been anything this size on the planet for sixty million years. "
"Not anything we know about. Look, Gabe, I followed the trail through the grass to the mutilated cows. I thought that was where they went, but evidently that's where they just came from. "
"They? You think there's more than one?"
"So you accept that this thing is real?"
"No, Theo. I'm just asking what you think. "
"I think that this thing was with Molly Michon. "
Gabe laughed. "Theo, I think the withdrawal has you addled. "
"I'm not joking. Molly was here right after I heard my car getting crunched. She gave me the keys to the handcuffs. When I came out, she was gone, and so were Joseph Leander and whoever he came here to see. "
"So what do you think happened to them?"
"The same thing that happened to those cows. Or something like it. The same thing that I think happened to the Plotznik kid. The last time anyone saw him was at the Fly Rod Trailer Court. That's where Molly lives. "
Gabe stood and looked around at the pattern of tracks. "You haven't been into town today, have you, Theo?"
"No, I've been busy. "
"Les from the hardware store is missing. They found his truck behind the Head of the Slug, but there's no sign of him. "
"We've got to go to Molly's, Gabe. "
"We? Theo, I'm a biologist, not a cop. I say we try and track whatever this is. Skinner's a pretty good tracker. I'd bet we find an explanation that doesn't involve some sort of giant creature. "
"I'm not a cop anymore either. And what if we track this thing and you're wrong, Gabe? Do you want to meet
up with whatever did that to my car? Those cows?"
"Well, yes, I do. "
"We can do that later. It shouldn't be too hard. Whatever it is, it's pulling a house trailer. "
"What?"
"There was a trailer here when Leander took me into the shed. When I came out, it was gone. "
Gabe checked his watch. "Have you eaten today? I'm not questioning you, but maybe you're having a hypoglycemic reaction or something. Let's go get some dinner and when your head clears, we can go by Molly Michon's. "
"Right, I'm hallucinating from a bad case of the munchies. "
Gabe grabbed his shoulder. "Theo, please. I have a date. "
Theo nodded. "Molly's first. Then I'll go to dinner. "
"Deal," Gabe said, still staring at the tracks. "I want to come back here with some casting materials. Even if this is a hoax, I want a record of it. "
Theo started for the truck and pulled up when he heard the sound of a cell phone ringing inside the shed. He walked into the shed, located the cell phone, and looked at the display for the number that was ringing in. It was Burton's private number. He drew his . 357 Magnum and blew the phone into a thousand pieces. He walked out of the shed to find Gabe hiding behind the fender of the red truck and Skinner cowering in the bed.
"What in the hell do you mean, you have a date?"
