By Jim Janus
We work the Lazy B cattle ranch outside Amarillo in the traditional way–on horses. For that reason the chop chop chop of a helicopter caused us to look up and the cattle to go different directions. One of the cowhands, a new guy named Jack, pulled up his horse. I suppose to figure why the machine hovered over our business.
I saw the whirlybird letting down a line with a harness, but had to focus again on the herd to get it back together. I looked back and saw Jack off his horse with a lone steer and I thought he was pushing the harness away.
I’ll be darned, the next I see…the steer is rising into the air and Jack’s going up with it. The two got drawn up about twenty feet, partway to the chopper. The craft then made a one-eighty, went higher and disappeared over the hill.
It was hours before sunset when we got the rest of the herd back to the corral. Didn’t want to risk losing any more. I hitched my horse and went into Bess’ office. She doesn’t let us take phones on the range, so I was bringing news.
“Ain’t it too soon to bring ‘em in?” she asked. Her plaid shirt made her look easy going, but she was all business. Before I could explain, she went on, “Is there fresh water in the troughs? Fresh hay in the feeders?”
Bess pesters me this way. The guys wonder why I put up with it. I tell them it’s what a good husband does. She and I are getting on thirty-five years.
Bess then asked, “Any trouble with the animals?”
I told what happened and barely finished when she asked, “Which steer was it?” showing no concern for our missing man. I can’t tell steer apart when I’m next to them, and before I could say I didn’t know, Bess became uneasy and blurted, “Suzie!”
A steer named Suzie? I’m shaking my head. On the fairgrounds a 4H poster explains bovine. Cow’s a female, bull’s a male, steer’s a male that’s castrated. I saw the poster as a kid. Didn’t understand it at first, but youngsters around livestock figure out pretty quick.
Like the girl who gave the cutesy name to this steer, the one she raised, the one that took grand champion at last summer’s Texas state fair. Bess paid two hundred thousand for it, even knowing we wouldn’t make money back. Now the girl can pay for college, and 4H has got more to run on.
Bess explained all this to Sheriff Mac. He showed up at our place soon after Bess had me call him. Now he had an idea why someone might take that particular steer. He skipped asking Bess why she let it graze with the others.
Mac removed his hat, looked inside, then put it back on. “I wouldn’t believe any of this,” he said, “especially the helicopter part. But one of my men was other side of the hill when the chopper eased the pair down near a transport. He wasn’t close enough to question them. Now we’re looking for a bright red cab, with an extended sleeper, pulling a livestock trailer.”
“Get my Suzie!” Bess ordered.
“I’ll try, ma’am. And to do it, I’m taking your husband with me.”
“Leslie ain’t goin’ nowhere. There’s work here needs doin’.”
Leslie’s my middle name. I don’t like it because it sounds like a girl’s name. Bess knows, and uses it when she’s mad.
“Bess, this one’s not your call.” Mac knew how to stand up to her. “If we find a helicopter, Tuff will need to identify it.”
Tuff’s my real name. I went by it when Mac and I were in rodeos. I was a champion roper. Good with a gun too. Then Bess came along.
A voice crackled over Mac’s radio. A red cab with a livestock trailer was seen off I-40 in Wildorado.
“Come on, Tuff,” said the sheriff. “And bring your rope and gun belt. Make sure you got your phone, too.”
Mac and I sped away from the Lazy B in his black pickup, the law enforcement kind. He explained there was no need for the siren or flashing lights.
It took us about thirty minutes until we saw the rig on the shoulder. Just then it was moving back onto the road. Mac eased off the gas and we followed the semi at a distance. The trailer was full. We knew because we couldn’t see through the slats and we could smell the animals and smell what came out of them. Mac’s been away from the rodeo so long he started coughing and put his hanky over his nose and made a couple declarations.
I guess we spooked the driver because the rig picked up speed. Mac pressed the gas, and with his finger flicked a dashboard switch. Red and blue flashes reflected off the trailer but the rig kept going. Ahead, a big sign got closer. Welcome to New Mexico.
Now we were going into hills. Up, then down, then up again. The dashboard MPH showed 80. I turned in my seat and grabbed the stuff I brought. I put on my gun belt, put on my work gloves, then grabbed my rope. I looked over at Mac and said, “Get alongside that thing.”
Mac did.
The rig’s chrome exhaust stack was almost close enough to touch. I was in my seat pulling the rope through my glove and making a loop. Next I was outside my door, using the running board and external grab handle to steady myself. Below, yellow lines flashed by. With my wrist I started twirling the rope loop…then I let it fly. On that first try I lassoed the stack and swung over between the cab and the trailer.
I held the rope with one hand, and with the other I pulled my pistol, crouched down, and fired where the trailer’s pin was locked into the cab’s coupling plate. Damn that bullet almost came back and got me. I fired again, then once more, and sure enough the pin of the trailer got mangled so it couldn’t hold any longer.
The trailer dropped clear, scraping and sparking on the road, losing speed. Mac’s vehicle slowed alongside it. Good for Mac and the cattle. But I was still on the back of a cab going eighty. I knew it couldn’t go forever.
The cab slowed and headed off the road past a tall post supporting a sign saying Diesel Dan’s. As soon as the cab stopped I freed the rope from the stack, jumped off the frame, and dodged behind a dropped trailer. The driver of the cab climbed down and stepped to the coupling plate, inspected it, then walked into the store. I saw an outside door to a restroom and hurried over to it. Inside, I locked the door and glanced at my phone. Two missed calls. Mac was one of them. I called him back. He said he checked the trailer. No Suzie.
Then I listened to Bess’ message. Her tone was serious as earlier. “If you don’t come back with our prize winner, I’m renamin’ the Lazy B Ranch to Leslie’s.”
I shoved the phone in my pocket, cracked the restroom door, and peered into the lot. It was getting dark. I hurried out and waited behind the same trailer. Out of the store came the driver of the red cab. He carried with him a bale of hay, went straight to the door of the sleeper, opened it, and hoisted the bale in. Then he stepped to the driver’s door, opened it and climbed into the seat. I heard the engine start, so I crept up by the coupling plate and got back on.
Hours in a vehicle can seem like a long time. Riding on the back of one makes it seem even longer. I used the time for thinking, about why anyone would put so much effort into taking a champion steer. Sure, Suzie cost a lot. But it wouldn’t pay much more than another steer. Not enough to explain a helicopter and a rig.
I thought about Bess, too. She and I made our living selling steer for slaughter. But something about Suzie made Bess want to buy it and keep it. Maybe our never having kids. We talked before putting up the money. It was a nice talk. We have them from time to time. Mostly when Bess is through with the day’s work.
The last leg of the trip was on a narrow road bordered by trees. The truck slowed and, as I could only see whatever the truck passed, I saw we entered a fenced area and I watched a chain-link gate sliding closed behind us. The cab stopped and I made for the trees.
The area was lit by tall metal poles supporting stadium-type lights. Beneath them was a corral, a horse barn, a corrugated metal building…and a helicopter. From the cab the driver climbed down. He opened the sleeper’s outside door and looked to be negotiating with someone inside. From the building two individuals came to help. One was Jack, our missing cattleman. The other wore a long white lab coat. The group pulled at the sleeper and what came out was a steer. I told you already I can’t differentiate one from another, but now, even in the dark and far away I was certain it was Suzie. They prodded it away from the truck toward the lit-up corral.
My phone sounded and the men paused for a moment. The screen showed Bess. I silenced it and backed myself deeper into the trees. The men continued ahead. Then my shoulder was squeezed by a strong hand. I reached for my gun.
The hand was Mac’s. He whispered that he tracked my device, parked his pickup at the gate, then hopped the fence. He and I agreed the men seemed to be outlaws, but there wasn’t anything the two of us could do to get Suzie out of there.
Then an idea came to me.
“Mac,” I said. “Let’s sneak to that barn, choose a couple horses, and rope those rustlers.”
“Forget it, Tuff.” Mac replied. “Tomorrow I’ll bring the FBI here.”
“Mac, my days of feeling like a bull are over. I’m an old hand enjoying the good things. But I don’t like being robbed of testosterone and plodding along like another steer. Tonight I swung onto that truck and a young me came back. Like I was competing under the lights of the fairgrounds.
“I’d love some of that action, Tuff, but I gotta save my badge. I won’t stop you if you go in there, but you gotta be careful. When you’re invitin’ yourself into an outlaw’s place, you gotta expect they’ll shoot at you.”
I readied my rope. Then I flipped out the barrel of my revolver and pushed in six bullets. I rode in there and those guys didn’t know I was coming. I was up against Jack, the trucker, and the guy in the white lab coat. That guy surprised me by being the best shot of the bunch. Right away he got off two shots. One hit me, but not anywhere that hurt much. I shot back at him and disabled his shooting arm. The trucker must have been thinking about his family or something because, after me and the doc went at it, he dropped his gun and put up his hands. As for Jack, it seems he’s only good at helicopter stunts. He dodged here and there but couldn’t avoid my lasso. I pulled it a little tighter than I needed to.
Mac called the FBI and they arrested the men that night. The one in the white coat had a plan to create a dozen Suzies.
When I got back to the ranch, a generator was running and a floodlight lit up the office’s front porch. Bess stood on a stepladder hammering above the door a sign that said Leslie’s.
“Take it down,” I said. Then I took her to the single-animal trailer behind Mac’s pickup. Suzie was already out, grazing at the side of the drive. Bess went to the prize steer, scratched its head, then turned to me with the look she had when we met at the rodeo.
Later, inside our home, Bess talked to me real nice.
Jim's Writing 