Dead Horses Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by David E. Knop. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2020

  Bookbaby, 7905 N. Crescent Blvd., Pennsauken, NJ 08110 [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-098-32245-8

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 1

  Al-Fadi, The Redeemer, lay dead over blood-clotted sand.

  I had seen this Polish stud last year at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. The Missing Livestock Report described this horse with mirror precision; champagne and white tobiano patterns like big commas over the neck and chest.

  I usually paid little attention to the online livestock-theft notices, but my pueblo, the Cochiti Pueblo— halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe—exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the New Mexico Bureau of Land Management over this park. The Kasha-Katuwe, also known as Tent Rocks, is a set of unique pumice formations southwest of the pueblo. Bands of gray volcanic tuff and beige-pink rock layered the cliff face. Arroyos, wind-scooped slot canyons, cut into cliffs. The beauty of this place always left me in awe.

  Except for now. The carcass decayed at the base of a cliff. When some picnickers had complained of the smell, I drove down to the site with my own horse and trailer in tow.

  And, I needed the diversion. I still felt the sting of the divorce papers slapped in my hand two Mondays ago.

  Al-Fadi had been dead for at least three days evidenced by the flies buzzing by the thousands and the mass of wriggling maggots. I gagged as I circled the carcass to get upwind. White ribs protruded from his torn hide like an open picket gate. Coyote. The Arabian’s bloated legs stuck out straight and stiff. Hollow cavities stared from the eye sockets. The stud’s mane and tail fluttered in the wind, then straightened as a dust devil twisted by, throwing grit in my eyes and topping the carcass with sand.

  A bullet between the eyes had finished off the stud point-blank. Burnt hair surrounded the wound. Maggots continued their feast among the wounds.

  Holding my breath, I pulled out my pocketknife, an eight-in-one do-everything-but-feed-the-horses model and dug around the back of the horse’s throat. I sliced through hesitant soft-tissue and scraped along bone until I got lucky. The bullet, wet and slightly distorted, had distinct land-and-groove marks. It looked like a .357, but I wouldn’t know for sure until the lab examined it.

  I stepped back for air, took a deep breath towards the sky. I couldn’t imagine anyone still being here, but I checked the pale tuff cliffs to make sure I was alone. Phallic rock formations, ninety feet high, offered unlimited hiding places. Tricky breezes sent a shiver cold down my spine. Even Crowd Killer danced and snorted where I’d tied him. I pocketed my knife and rubbed his nose. He settled down as I talked to him, and after a while he started munching the brush he’d stashed inside his cheek.

  A pebble scraped from above and Crowd Killer alerted. I scanned the cliffs. My horse was skittish as hell, and maybe I acted jumpy, but that didn’t explain the hair raised on my forearms.

  Watching and listening exposed nothing, so I went back to surveying the ground. Wind and a light rain last night had muted the critical characteristics of boot prints but tracks in the sand still showed that two assholes had driven a trailer to this spot. They probably then unloaded the Arabian, led him to the base of the cliff, then shot him in the head.

  Tent Rocks was only one of many good places to hide a carcass in the Southwest. Al-Fadi came from a ranch north of Santa Fe. So, why here? They had to trailer the Arabian forty miles to this place and that didn’t make sense.

  A flash of light jacked my heart. I scanned the cliffs. Twenty years on this job had netted me plenty of enemies and a healthy dose of paranoia. But I didn’t see a damn thing except Hawk, perched high and regal on the cliff.

  The FBI, BLM, and Sheriff needed notification, but my cell phone showed no bars. I strung yellow tape quickly and got ready to leave. The cliffs flashed again, but this time I caught the source at the top. I played dumb and mounted up. Crowd Killer made his usual protest by twisting away as I legged up but settled down soon. We trotted toward my truck and trailer like I was going home. Once Crowd Killer was loaded, I would track down that son-of-a-bitch watching from the edge of the cliff.

  I hopped into my Jeep, a red and white ‘53 custom, and drove down Route 92 towards Cochiti Pueblo, Crowd Killer in tow, for two miles until out of sight of the cliffs. I pulled into a ravine and hoofed back toward the place where I’d noticed the flash. I doubted the watcher was still there, but I needed a sign. Marks on the ground often speak with a clear tongue.

  I slogged uphill slowly. I needed to work out more. Hugging ravines and vegetation, visions of Al-Fadi in life passed before me. Fifteen hands high and over twelve hundred pounds. Muscular beauty. Flowing mane. A showy prancer in the Scottsdale Horse Show arena who had owned the crowd and knew it.

  On high ground, I stayed off the skyline until I reached where I thought the watcher had to have been. An overlook above the carcass showed footprints and scuffing where someone had crouched. I figured the snoop had to be some weirdo or maybe a cop-wannabe who’d picked the missing horse off the online missing livestock reports and got his kicks by watching the scene. But these tracks created a path that showed the man had enough savvy to stay completely out sight. He was gone, leaving only traces of footprints behind.

  Shadows lengthened and I didn’t want to chance a broken leg in this rough country after sunset. Seeking out an unknown at night didn’t appeal, either. I trotted down the ridgeline to my Jeep.

  The carcass would still be there in the morning. And if the snoop was there, I would nail him.

  Chapter 2

  Next morning, I called the FBI’s Albuquerque field office. My usual contact was on assignment, so I talked to an agent who was new and not enthusiastic about investigating a livestock killing. “I’ll get right on it,” he said, after consulting his boss.

  I took that to mean later. Much later.

  Then I called the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office in Bernalillo. Deputy Robert Bowditch was an old friend. More often than not, the sheriff would jump on livestock cases.

  “Got a dead horse at Tent Rocks. FBI’s not enthusiast
ic, how about you?” I asked him.

  “You mean that missing Arab stud from north of Santa Fe, what, Rancho Camino de Rincon?”

  “The same.” I filled him in on the details.

  He said, “Weird dump site. Why drive a horse all that way just to shoot it? Plenty of places for that up north. Why here?” he asked.

  “Nothing comes to mind. Doesn’t even make sense to steal a horse like that. Can’t show it. Can’t breed it. Can’t even sell the sperm without papers. An Arab without registration is worth zip.”

  “That all you got?” he asked.

  “Questions is all I got.”

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, but FBI and BLM is up each other’s ass more often than not. Sorry, I’m not jumping into that hornets’ nest. Enjoy.” Bowditch hung up, off to protect and serve.

  The Bureau of Land Management’s Rio Puerco field office in Albuquerque had jurisdiction over wild mustangs, so I called. Special Agent Raphael Torres seemed interested until I gave details.

  “This horse is wild or stray?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Okay, I’ll bury it.”

  “Not at Tent Rocks, you won’t,” he said.

  “You said it wasn’t your problem.”

  “It is if you bury it in my national monument,” he huffed and hung up.

  Great. I reported a crime, and nobody came.

  Last, I punched in Rancho Camino de Rincon’s number. The ranch foreman, Tyler Richman, answered.

  “Found your horse.” I told him when and where.

  Richman exhaled. “You’re gonna tell me Al-Fadi is dead.”

  “You knew?”

  “Second one this month. A filly, Mahbouba. Found her up in Colorado a week ago. Shot in the head. Horrible thing. Fadi?”

  “Same. What you want me to do with the carcass?”

  “Damn. You got a trailer?” he asked.

  The image of the stinking remains flashed in my mind. “Carcass is in bad shape.”

  “Mr. Romero, the owner has great affection for that horse and wants him buried at the ranch. Believe me, he doesn’t take no for an answer. You will be well compensated for your time and any damages.”

  “I’ll get back to you.” I hung up.

  On the far wall of my office, my eyes caught sight of a framed photo I’d hung of me in my dress blues thirty years and that many pounds ago. For whatever reason, it grabbed my attention. Next to it used to hang our wedding picture. A rectangle of unfaded paint emphasized its absence. Costancia must’ve taken the photo with her; a gesture that meant maybe she didn’t think the whole marriage a disaster. There were good days, for sure, and we’d raised a fine son.

  A picture of Costancia hung to the left of the bare spot. She was nineteen then, with long, thick hair; black and radiant. Her smile delighted everyone she’d ever met. Her voice calmed. Her eyes captivated. She had tried to make it work for twenty-five years. I did, too, but I fucked it up by putting more effort into my work than into our relationship.

  I glanced at the divorce decree and pushed it to a far corner of my desk and hoped it’d disappear. Regret closed my throat and tightened my chest, so I directed my attention to a situation I might be able to fix. Dead horses.

  I sat wondering why someone would kill a beauty like Al-Fadi. Not rustlers because those outlaws have connections and the Arabian would be in Mexico by now. People who knew horseflesh wouldn’t kill a pedigree stud that might bring in over a few hundred grand. Kidnap for ransom? The owner would’ve received demands and threats. And there’d be no missing livestock reports.

  The murder of this beautiful animal bothered me more than I thought. Animals have souls and killing them without need pisses me off. An old man from my pueblo, had to be a hundred, told me something that stuck once.

  “When our ancestors traded hunting for farming, they lost respect for animals once equal. To justify themselves, when Man enslaved the animals, they had to deny the animals’ intelligence, deny them their souls.”

  The next day, I motored to Tent Rocks, this time with my Winchester lever-action, because he that is forewarned best be armed. I usually carried my Ruger Blackhawk .30 carbine revolver. A good piece in a frontal assault but it would be ineffective against a threat from the top of the cliffs, if it came to that. I felt for the shells on the seat for comfort.

  The dead stallion lay as I’d left him. Coyote had visited during the night again and Buzzard sat on the cliff watching me. Nothing else had changed. Neck hairs under my braid tingled as I scoped the bluffs. My head felt naked to the likelihood of a riflescope, its crosshairs making pin pricks on my skin. Maybe this time it was just paranoia screwing with my head, but I still kept my rifle close.

  I had work to do and couldn’t spend all day scanning the scenery. My thoughts turned to the carcass ahead of me. I love horses, always have, and wasn’t happy at the thought of desecrating such a beautiful animal, but I admit I was a little excited to use the new winch I’d installed last month. I flipped my braid over my shoulder and ran the cable through the hook then around the horse’s chest. God, it stunk.

  When I’d almost winched the whole mess into the trailer, a hind leg snagged on the gate and tore off, landing in the dirt. I threw the leg inside, thinking I should’ve kicked myself in the ass with it. The image of this magnificent Arabian, trailing banners of long radiant hair, now minus a leg and jammed inside a small trailer, burned my gut. To destroy an animal like this, a man had to be twisted.

  I headed north on Interstate 25. Ten miles south of Santa Fe, a hot sun shimmered the highway and the surrounding grasslands of La Bajada Mesa, the juniper-studded flat top where wagon tracks of 17th century travelers are etched into volcanic rock. Interstate 25, a modern overlay of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adento, the Royal Road of the Interior, obscured the original road, the principal trade route between Santa Fe and Mexico City. The route bustled with traders, thieves, and mercenaries for nearly three hundred years, but history enjoys little respect in the modern world.

  I breathed in the story of this mesa as I motored up its slopes. La Bajada nurtured my people long before the Spanish came. Pre-contact footpaths, stone piles, and agricultural grids bore witness to settlers, farmers, and conquerors.

  Anthropologists say my people arrived as early as twelve thousand years ago. The anthropologists are wrong, though. My people are not new arrivals. We have been here forever. I am not merely from this place; I am of it.

  My awe of this land’s past was deflated by the thought of the regal animal, descendant from a line of horses five thousand years old, loaded in my trailer.

  I glanced in my rearview and noticed a truck five hundred yards behind me. I watched him for twenty minutes in the rearview. It must have been amateur hour because when I slowed, he slowed. When I sped up, so did he. I shook him loose at the Cerillos exit with a quick off-and-on.

  North of Santa Fe, up US-84 past Pojoaque and south of Nambe, I turned onto a road shaded by gnarled cottonwoods and marked by a timber arch that framed the Sangre de Cristo Range. At the end of the pasture-lined road, I spotted a two-hundred-year-old stucco hacienda built in traditional pueblo-style. I knew the inside without even seeing it: lots of fancy tile, fountains, twelve-inches-in-diameter vigas supporting the latillas crisscrossing the ceiling, and skull-cracking door frames built for shorter people who lived two centuries ago.

  Ranch Foreman Tyler Richman greeted me under the shade of a hundred-year-old cottonwood canopy. A breeze rustled the leaves. I appreciated the opportunity to cool down. The day was a scorcher.

  Richmond looked forty; a skinny horseman in his Wranglers and white, long-sleeve, snap-button. A sweat-ring soaked through his Stetson. Beat-up boots and a lame gait confirmed my opinion; anyone who’s ever broken horses ends up broken, too. Richmond had the used-up expression of the over-stressed on his thin, tanned face.

  I told Richmond what I�
�d observed at the crime scene including the suspicious gawker.

  Richmond said, “The weirdo gets his kicks watching crime scenes?”

  “Who knows? Drives a ’72 Chevy C-10. Blue, patched and primed bomb. Beat to shit. Not smart enough to tail undetected. Couldn’t read the plate numbers, but it looked Colorado. Ya know, red and white. Veteran’s plate, maybe.”

  Richmond nodded.

  “How does something like this happen?” I asked.

  Richmond dropped his eyebrows. “What do you mean by that?”

  I’d stepped in it a little deeper than I wanted to. I had to sympathize with the guy because his job was threatened. “I mean, how do two expensive horses get stolen within a week?”

  He glared at me. “Where you get off, Romero? You find one horse and you’re in my face with it? What the fuck?”

  “Just asking questions.”

  “How ‘bout minding your own fucking business.” Richmond spit the words, upped the volume.

  I was surprised by his reaction, but I matched him for volume. “I just drove a rotting carcass forty miles and made it my business.” My face in his. His breath quickened, and I braced for a fist.

  A man in a dark suit ran out of the home’s front door, yelling, “Hey, hey! Knock it off!” The man pushed his way between us. Richmond backed away. So did I when I spotted the piece under his jacket.

  “Who’s this?” The man in the suit asked.

  Richmond said, “Some wannabe cop from Rez Nowhere.”

  “I brought up his horse at his request. Who are you?” I asked.

  “Name’s Palafox. I’ve been hired to investigate the thefts. You two hotheads cool off.” He swiveled his head between the two of us, acting like he wanted to take us both on at once. A set of biceps pulling at his coat sleeves hinted he had the muscle to do it. His chin said, Try me. “You Romero from Cochiti?” Palafox said calmly.

  “Right,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Mister Romero, but Tyler’s been under a lot of pressure as of late. Tyler, you got work to do?”

  Richmond turned to go but not before throwing a nasty eye-lock that told me we would knock heads again.