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Satisfied, Boone passed him some folded bills. “Just to show we appreciate the favor, take your wife out to dinner.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” Joe Ed was quick to notice the top bill was a twenty and stuffed it all in his pocket. “You know I’m happy to oblige if I can.”
“Like I said, we appreciate it,” Boone said and climbed out of the car.
The deputy kept one eye on the rearview mirror, tracking Boone’s progress as he made his way to the pickup parked behind the patrol car. The money felt good in his pocket. If he had any regrets, it was that there weren’t more favors he could do for the Rutledges.
Less than a minute later, Boone swung his pickup around the patrol car and accelerated down the country road. Deciding that this was as good a place as any to kill time, Joe Ed settled back in the driver’s seat, calculating that it would take the semi between fifteen and twenty minutes to reach the Cee Bar and somewhere around an hour to unload its hay.
Scant minutes after he arrived at the intersection a half mile down the road from the Cee Bar’s entrance, Joe Ed spotted the semi coming down the ranch lane, its trailer empty. Waiting, he let it go past him, then pulled onto the road behind it. He followed for a good mile before he flipped on his lights. He smiled to himself, imagining the way the truck driver was cussing, certain there was no cause for getting pulled over.
Air brakes whooshed as the semi slowed and swung onto the shoulder. Joe Ed stopped behind him and took his time getting out of the patrol car, then dawdled at the rear of the trailer.
The driver swung down from the cab. Of average height and build, he looked to be in his early twenties.
“What’s the problem, Officer?” His attempt to sound pleasant failed to mask the driver’s underlying impatience.
“Your taillights kept blinking on and off,” Joe Ed lied. “You probably have a short or loose connection somewhere.”
The driver frowned in surprise. “They’ve been working fine.” But there was new doubt in his voice.
“Didn’t I just see you pull out of the Cee Bar Ranch?”
“Yeah, I dropped off a bunch of hay for them.” The driver was already busy checking to make sure the connections were tight.
“As rough as that lane is, it wouldn’t surprise me if something jiggled loose,” the deputy remarked, then feigned nonchalance. “Say, does Red Parker still work there?”
“Couldn’t say.” The driver shrugged in indifference.
“I know he used to. He’s hard to miss. His hair is as red as fire.”
“Neither of the men I saw had red hair.”
“They didn’t.” The deputy tried to sound disappointed. “The men you saw—what did they look like?”
“One was tall with black hair, maybe thirty. He’s the one who signed for the hay. The other one was an old guy,” the driver answered without any real interest.
“An old guy,” Joe Ed repeated thoughtfully, then eyed the young driver. “What was he, forty? Fifty?”
“Hell, he looked seventy, if he was a day,” the driver declared with a typical amusement of the young for the ancient. “But he sure knew how to work that tractor.”
“Red isn’t anywhere close to seventy. I guess it wasn’t him. I wonder who the old guy is. You didn’t happen to catch his name, did you?”
“No, we didn’t get around to introductions. The other guy, though, he had an Indian name. Gray-hawk or something like that.” He paused, shooting the deputy a curious look. “Is it important?”
“Naw,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “I was just curious.” He flicked a hand at the trailer’s taillights. “When you get down the road, you might want to have somebody make sure your lights are working right.”
Back in the patrol car, Joe Ed pulled onto the road, eager to reach his prearranged meeting place with Boone Rutledge and relay the information he had gleaned from the truck driver. There was an excitement in knowing that there might be a way for him to earn more money. The question of whether it was ethical or not never arose. He didn’t know of a single cop who didn’t do some moonlighting during his off-duty hours.
The reds and golds of sunset streaked the western sky, tinting the Slash R’s trademark white fences with a rosy hue. Evening’s approach brought a natural slowing of activity. But any impression of calm was shattered by the roaring drone of a helicopter’s powerful engine and the rhythmic chop of its rotary blades beating the air as it swooped out of the sky and took aim at the private helipad, located near the main house.
Boone clamped a hand on his hat and angled away from the powerful downdraft that preceded the helicopter’s actual touchdown. It was a position he held until he heard the slowing whine of the engine shutting down and felt the abatement of its self-generated wind. He watched while the specially designed lift was rolled up to the passenger door.
The arrival scene was much too commonplace for Boone to marvel at the engineering that enabled his father to exit the aircraft onto a hoist that lowered his wheelchair to the ground, all with an absolute minimum of assistance from others. Impatience with the lift’s slow descent was the only thing Boone felt as he waited for his father to join him.
At last the wheelchair came rolling toward him in its nearly noiseless glide, and Boone found himself under the scrutiny of his father’s piercing gaze. As always it was difficult to hold. Boone lifted his chin a notch, girding himself with the knowledge that this time he had succeeded beyond his father’s expectations. He couldn’t possibly find fault with him.
“Well, well, well,” Max Rutledge declared, his mouth twisting in a sardonic smile, “if it isn’t my son on hand to greet me. That can only mean you have something of importance t
