Elmo Tiller sat on the open tailgate of his white Ford Super Duty
F-450, nursed a cold bottle of Shiner Bock pulled from the ice chest
a few minutes earlier, and watched a dust plume approaching. He wore
ropers the color of Texas dirt that had long ago molded themselves to
the shapes of his feet, well-worn Wranglers that clung to legs bowed
from decades of horseback riding, a chambray long-sleeved work shirt
with the cuffs rolled back to reveal sinewy forearms the color and
texture of worn leather, and a sweat-stained white Shantung straw
Stetson that shielded his pale blue eyes from the glaring morning
sun. He had shaved before driving down from the ranch house, but
tufts of gray bristle nestled where the razor failed to navigate the
wrinkled canyons of his face. A blue bandanna hung from one back
pocket, a pair of tan deerskin gloves from the other, and a holster
tucked into the small of his back held a Glock 27 semi-automatic
pistol he’d purchased and registered after earning the concealed
carry permit in his wallet.
He turned his attention from the approaching dust plume to the
Herefords scattered across the short-grass prairie his forebears had
fenced off for pastureland. In addition to the cattle dotting the
landscape were several shrubby mesquite trees and some prickly pear
cacti, but the only real trees were a few cottonwoods growing near
the ranch house at the top of the low rise several miles away. After
his most recent visit to his cardiologist, any day Elmo spent outside
with his cattle was a good day.
He’d just finished the beer and opened a second when an aging black
Dodge Ram 3500 wheeled through the open gate and across the cattle
guard, a rusty livestock trailer clunking along behind it. The
rancher set the bottle aside and slipped down from the tailgate as a
man less than half his age stepped out of the Dodge. Chance Palmer
came from a different generation. Though he wore Wranglers like Elmo,
he also wore scuffed black steel-toed work boots, a sleeveless black
Metallica T-shirt that hung loosely over his emaciated frame, and a
black-and-white Tractor Supply Co. gimme cap with the brim broken
into a compound curve lower on the left that partially blocked
sunlight coming in the side window when he drove. Stringy black hair
hung to his shoulders, and that he had not shaved in several days
gave his face a dirty, mottled appearance. When he spoke, he revealed
rotting black teeth surrounded by the open sores on his gums and
lips.
“Mornin’, Elmo.”
Elmo winced at the smell of the other man’s breath and nodded a
greeting. He hadn’t had much time to plan for their meeting after
Chase called his burner phone that morning and told him special agent
Jim Walker had been nosing around his place, but Elmo felt confident
he’d thought everything through, beginning with smashing the burner
phone and dropping the pieces into the well behind his ranch house.
“I brought four, just like I said.”
Elmo followed Chance toward the livestock trailer. As he did, he
glanced in the bed of Chance’s truck, where he saw bolt cutters
used to gain access to pastureland and a bucket of feed used to
attract cattle.
“No tags, no brands,” Chance said. He scratched one arm and then
the other. “I checked.”
Elmo eyed the four Herefords—three cows and one steer—inside the
trailer. Deep cherry red, with white faces, chests, and lower
bellies, nothing about their coloration appeared unique, and Elmo
felt certain the cattle would easily blend with his herd until they
became steaks, one indistinguishable from the other.
“Let ’em out one at a time,” Elmo said, “and let me look ’em
over.”
Chance swung the tailgate open and dropped the loading ramp. One at a
time, he led each of the animals out of the trailer for Elmo to
examine. Just as Chance had promised, there were no identifying marks
on any of the Herefords—no brands and no ear tags with or without
built-in radio-frequency identification. Each animal would pull in
about a thousand dollars at auction, but until he transported the
Herefords to auction, they would be drinking his water and eating his
grass, both of which were in short supply thanks to the drought.
Without sufficient water, grass didn’t grow, cows couldn’t eat,
and herds shrank. As the drought continued, fewer head reaching
market meant prices went up and, as prices went up, rustling became
increasingly profitable. Unemployable cattlemen such as Chance found
an easier way to feed their methamphetamine addictions than boosting
cars and breaking into homes. Though risking prison time for
third-degree felony, all Chance had to do was walk into a pasture
with a bucket of feed and attract the attention of a few head of
cattle, which followed the feed as he led them up a ramp and into his
livestock trailer. On a good night, he could cut the padlock on a
gate, get two to four head into his trailer, and be back on the road
in less than thirty minutes. And nothing was more inconspicuous on a
Texas back road than a pickup truck towing a livestock trailer.
For several years, rustlers dropped stolen cattle at auction houses
and returned later to collect whatever money the animals brought at
auction, a business run entirely on handshake agreements. When the
auction houses tightened up their sale requirements, it became harder
for rustlers like Chance to unload stolen cattle.
Then Elmo and Chance found themselves in adjacent Emergency room
beds. Elmo had suffered his first heart attack while visiting a
feedlot, and after Chance overdosed he had been dropped in the
hospital’s driveway by a fellow tweaker. They soon realized they
could solve each other’s financial problems.
Chance no longer had a safe way to sell the cattle he rustled, and
Elmo’s income had taken a hit as the drought forced him to thin his
herd. As owner of the biggest ranch in the tri-county area and a past
president of the Cattle Ranchers Association, Elmo was beyond
reproach. He could easily mix stolen cattle with his herd and move
them through the auction houses for a reasonable profit. Thanks to
Chance, he was moving near as many head through the auction houses as
he had before the drought began.
Elmo slapped each of the Herefords on the ass, encouraging them to
meander across the pasture toward the other cattle grazing there.
Each of the animals would pull in about a thousand dollars at
auction, so Elmo pulled a rubber-banded roll of twenty
one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and pressed it into Chance’s
hand, paying half the Herefords’ value to the tweaker rustler.
“I can’t have you bringing Walker down on me,” Elmo said,
unwilling to risk prison time because he knew his heart couldn’t
take it, “so you need to lie low for awhile.”
“Yeah. I guess. Right.” Chance scratched his arms and blinked
rapidly. “What’m I going to do about—?”
Elmo cut him off. “Same as you did before.”
As Chance walked away, shoving the cash into his front pocket without
counting it, Elmo called his name.
Chance turned. “Yeah?”
Elmo drew the automatic from the holster at the small of his back. He
fired once, drilling a hole in the middle of the younger man’s
chest.
Then he pulled on his leather gloves and removed the wad of bills
from the dead man’s pocket. He stuck the money in a hidden cavity
in his truck’s wheel well, replacing a .38 Special he’d purchased
off the books many years earlier.
After returning to the dead man, he fired one shot from the .38 into
the side of his truck and a second shot into the distance.
He grabbed the bolt cutters from the back of Chance’s truck and
walked down to the open gate. After he closed it, he snapped the
padlock into place before cutting the lock free. He dropped the
pieces to the ground, where they fell through the metal grid of the
cattle guard. Short of breath and sweating from the exertion, Elmo
pushed back the brim of his Stetson and mopped his brow with the blue
bandanna. He opened the gate again and threw the bolt cutters into
the back of Chance’s truck as he returned to his F-450. There, he
removed his gloves and returned them to his back pocket, settled onto
the tailgate, and drained the open Shiner Bock he’d earlier set
there.
When the bottle was empty, he pulled out his cellphone.
By the time the sheriff arrived thirty minutes later, Elmo had
trouble lifting his left arm. Even so, he stood beside the sheriff
without complaint and together they stared at Chance’s body. By
then the dead man had begun attracting flies, and twice during the
wait Elmo had shooed away an aggressive vulture.
The sheriff, a barrel-chested man only a few years younger than Elmo,
wore a badge pinned to his white pearl-snap western-style shirt open
at the collar. His dark blue Wranglers had been pressed by his wife
that morning, and his black boots had started the day with a high
polish.
Elmo handed the man his Glock. “I caught the son-of-a-bitch trying
to steal my cattle.”
He explained that he had been protecting his property when Chance
tried to shoot him, and that he’d been protecting himself when he’d
shot Chance. He knew the sheriff would believe him. He’d helped
finance every one of the sheriff’s election campaigns.
The sheriff eyed Elmo’s truck. “Where’s your rifle?”
“Up at the house. I didn’t have time to grab it.”
“You had time to grab beer but not your rifle?”
“I was loading the ice chest when I saw him coming through the
gate.”
The sheriff looked toward the ranch house, barely able to see it on
the rise. “You saw him from all the way up at the house?”
“My eyesight’s fine.”
Elmo repeated his story when Jim Walker joined them a few minutes
later. Dressed much like the sheriff, but sporting a handlebar
mustache and wearing a six-shooter at his hip, the whip-thin Walker
worked as the Cattle Ranchers Association’s special ranger for the
district, charged with investigating livestock thefts and
ranch-related property losses. He had arrived sooner than
anticipated, but Elmo felt confident from the sheriff’s reaction to
his initial telling that his story would hold true.
The sheriff walked the special ranger around the crime scene,
pointing out the cut padlock, the bolt cutters in the bed of Chance’s
pickup, the empty livestock trailer with the gate open and ramp
extended, the bullet hole in the side of Elmo’s truck, and the
revolver in the dead tweaker's hand.
Elmo hung back and leaned against the open tailgate of his F-450. He
had been feeling poorly ever since cutting the padlock, and now he
felt as if a Hereford bull sat on his chest. He’d felt the same
pressure twice before, and both times he’d been hospitalized. He
patted his pockets with his right hand. In his rush to leave the
ranch house that morning to take care of Chance, he had failed to
take care of himself. He had forgotten his nitroglycerin pills.
“Hey,” he said, trying to attract the other men’s attention.
They were too far away and too engrossed in their own conversation to
hear his weak plea for help. “Hey.”
“I’ve been hard on that boy’s ass for a couple of months now,”
Walker said, indicating Chance’s body with a thrust of his chin. “I
knew he’d been rustling, but I couldn’t figure out where he’s
been selling the cattle. None of the auction houses has any record of
dealing with him for near on a year.”
The sheriff scratched his chin and said, “Looks like Elmo here
solved your problem for you.”
“Looks like he did,” Walker agreed, “but not the way you think.
Chance wasn’t picking up cows, he was delivering.”
When Walker turned to address the rancher, Elmo clutched his chest
and fell to the ground. As he lay in the blazing mid-morning sun,
Elmo stared under his truck across the short-grass prairie at the
Herefords, shrubby mesquite trees, and prickly pear cacti dotting the
landscape, and ended his last good day knowing he would avoid prison
time.
