Laredo was just about to open his mouth to suggest that they move from the porch swing to someplace more comfortable—like Aria’s bedroom—when the sound of a diesel engine cut rudely through the night stillness.
Aria was off his lap like a shot. Stumbling to her feet, she ran to the edge of the porch. “I think it’s coming from my back pasture again.”
Laredo levered himself off the swing and yanked his shirt back down over his belly. “Call the cops.”
“The police?” She was already down the front steps and heading back around the house. “Are you sure?” she called over her shoulder. “You know who is a cop!”
Laredo cursed. He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. What was Aria doing? He heard the slap of her boots against the dirt and gravel near the barn. Then a four-wheeler roared to life.
“911 what’s your emergency?” the nasally voice came on just as Aria came flying out of the barn on an ATV.
Laredo grunted. “There are cattle thieves cutting fence and threatening lives at Clouds End Farm. Send someone right away!”
“Sir?” Was the woman a cartoon? Laredo would not have been surprised if that were true. “Sir? Stay on the line, sir.”
“Can’t! Send someone. Hurry!” Laredo ended the call just as Aria stopped long enough for him to climb on the seat behind her.
“Hang on!” Aria warned him.
Laredo hooked his boots into the platforms on either side of the fenders, but if he had not wrapped his arms around Aria’s waist, he would have still gone flying back over the rear tires of the big four-wheeler. Aria hit the throttle like a racecar driver at the starting line, and they were off like a shot.
The flight across the pasture was dizzying. The moon was bright. It shone down upon the rolling grassland with an eerie blue light that created odd shadows and strange formations on all sides. The tree line loomed dark and dangerous several miles ahead.
Laredo was taller, but he could not see through the tears streaming from his eyes as the wind whipped past his face. He could still hear though. The belch of a big diesel truck was accompanied by the sound of tires spinning on the moist grassy pasture. Then the four-wheeler suddenly began to climb. They were cresting a hill, and Laredo knew there was a big valley right on the other side. This was where the thieves had gotten away with the theft the first time. This is where those hundred head of cattle had disappeared only to be returned in bits and pieces. So, was this a steal or a return? Either one was a very bad thing.
Aria cut the throttle as they hit the top of the hill. The four-wheeler shuddered to a stop. Laredo reached up and wiped the moisture from his eyes. The valley looked like a war zone. There were three gooseneck trailers with trucks, and cattle were bawling and wandering everywhere. It was like the worst roundup day conceivable.
“What in the hell?” Aria shouted. “What are they doing?”
Laredo felt grim. “Looks like they’re returning what they stole. I’m sure the brands have been changed and we’ll be getting a complaint soon enough about stealing Flying W cows.”
“Why?” Aria pulled out a phone and started taking video. “They can’t get away with this! It’s ludicrous.”
Laredo pulled out his phone and snapped off a few shots as well. It was tempting to drive down there and start yelling and shouting and telling those assholes to get off his land. But that would likely have a mixture of results, and most of them could be bad.
Then Laredo heard sirens. “The police should be here shortly. We have to go find them and show them what we have.”
Aria nodded her head. He could not see her expression in the dark. It was disconcerting to have no notion what she might be thinking. “There’s only one way out for them from here.”
“Then, where did they come in at?”
“From your side of the fence.”
That was news to Laredo. As far as he knew, there was no way for a rig that size to get back here. “What? How is that even possible?”
“They come down that opposite hill into the valley. They’re cutting through the pasture itself, but they can’t make it back up the way they came in because there’s no road. No road, no traction. That means the only way out is that access road that allows your guys to get to the fence line through my property.”
Right of way was a pretty common thing when land was not accessible through the usual highways. Clouds End and the Hernandez operation had always had friendly agreements between them that way. But there were just as many negatives with the shared fence line between the Flying W and the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company.
“Hang on!” Aria told him.
She fired up the ATV and took off toward the sound of the sirens. The rising sound of shrieking electronic siren seemed to have a profound effect on the illicit cattle operation going on below. Apparently, none of the Flying W hired men were willing to take a chance that their policeman boss would bother to bail them out of jail for thieving. There were some shouts and a lot of engine roaring as the operation kicked into high gear.
Aria and Laredo were already speeding across the pasture on the four-wheeler. He hated to think what their speed was at the moment. It was like a potential ATV accident waiting to happen. The night wind whipped past Laredo’s face as he struggled to keep his seat and see where they were going at the same time. No helmets? No problem. If they stopped fast, he was going to launch into the air and fly about a million feet anyway.
His stomach gave a little heave as they hit a low spot and then abruptly started climbing. Suddenly, he felt the tires beneath them spin as they hit a road. The lights of the house became visible. The land flattened out, and they started hauling ass as though she were trying to find the top speed and push it higher.
Laredo spotted twirling lights and red-and-blue vehicles in the yard at Clouds End in front of the barn. He took a chance and lifted his arms to start waving. The emergency personnel were already staring at them. They were the only ones out here as far as anyone else could tell. No doubt the cops were thinking they’d been had.
“Thieves!” Laredo bellowed. “This way! Come around and block this road! They have to come out through here!”
There was a scramble as the four police vehicles lurched into motion. The cops jumped back inside their trucks and SUVs and floored it for the narrow gravel road where Aria and Laredo were still sitting on their ATV.
“Do you hear that?” Aria shouted.
Laredo listened. The telltale rumble of diesel engines was getting closer. He touched Aria’s shoulder. “Get off the road, sweetie! Get down off the road! They’re going to come barreling through there like a freight train.”
Anxiety twisted in his gut as he realized that they were a tiny speed bump on that big gravel road. The police cars were coming, but they weren’t going to stop those big farm trucks either.
The flashing lights sped closer, but behind Laredo, he could hear those trailer rigs picking up speed. For them, stopping would be catastrophic. The only thing they could hope was that they would piss off the cops enough to warrant chasing. But that process in and of itself was treacherous.
“Around,” Laredo urged Aria. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Go around them all!”
She didn’t question his meaning once. She turned the handlebars and hit the throttle to leave the road. They spun down into the lower side on the far side of the road away from the ranch. She made a wide turn, and suddenly Laredo could see the cattle rigs heading up the road. They were indeed picking up speed. They had to be doing at least fifty or sixty miles per hour on a narrow dirt road. One wrong move and they’d spin off the road into nowhere!
Aria gunned the engine, and the four-wheeler leaped as she headed it toward the lead of the caravan of rigs. He knew she was going for the license plates again. The police vehicles were stopping. Laredo could see the four units fanning out to form a sort of barrier across the dirt road. It wasn’t going to do anything. It wasn’t going to stop a single rig!
There was a muffled, unintelligible shout from one of the police car’s PA system. It took a split second for Laredo to register that nonsense before the first rig burst through a tiny hole between two police department SUVs.
The SUVs spun sideways to form a sort of thoroughfare. The crunch of twisted metal filled the air as the cop cars smashed against each other. The rigs kept going. They did not slow one bit. The headlights of the first one burst in a hail of plastic shards that littered the gravel road, but it did not slow them down.
“Oh my God,” Aria moaned. “Do you think they’re all right?”
“They’re fine,” Laredo assured her. He hoped he was right, but he could see the cops standing a few feet away furiously yelling into their cell phones and CB radios. “Hopefully they’re calling in reinforcements. If we can somehow find these bastards before they disappear onto the Flying W’s land, then we’ll finally have something on Paul Weatherby.”
Aria lifted her hands to her mouth as she watched the last of three rigs fly past the flimsy police barrier and turn back out onto the highway in a squeal of tires and the skidding of brakes and trailers on asphalt.
“We have to talk to the cops,” Aria decided. “Hang on one more time. I don’t want to lose you now!”
Laredo was well ready for the jolt this time as she hit the throttle and the four-wheeler shot toward the ruined police barrier. He felt the firmness of the backs of her thighs pressed against the front of his. Her back was pushed up against his chest, and his hands were locked around her midsection. The intimacy of the position was not lost on him.
Finally, they zoomed up over the edge of the road and hit the gravel with a slight shifting of the tires. Aria skillfully guided the ATV toward the police now congregating on the road beside their crushed vehicles.
“Everyone all right?” Laredo called out as soon as Aria cut the engine. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No.” A male policeman stepped forward. He seemed to be in charge. The stripes on his uniform identified him as a sergeant. “Was that your call to 911?”
“Yes,” Laredo confirmed. He and Aria dismounted the four-wheeler and stood on the road with the police. “I called because we heard them down there trying to gun their engines back up onto the road.”
“How do they even get rigs like that down there?” a female cop wheezed. She looked jumpy and shaken. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”
Aria began gesturing toward the entrance to Hernandez land many miles down the road. “They come through the other side of the hill. I don’t know how they actually get down there. I’ve never followed the trail. But I know they must idle the engines down into the valley and then they have to really hit it to get up the hill on my side of the fence. They’d never make it back up the way they came. But this is the best way to access Hernandez land without having to go past one of the main cattle camps.”
The police were nodding. The sergeant took off his hat and smacked it against his thigh. “We’ve got units out looking for them. They can’t hide in rigs like those!”
Laredo snorted. “Until they hit Flying W land and just disappear.”
All four cops shared a look that reeked of discomfort. Then the sergeant cleared his throat. “What makes you think it’s the Flying W doing this?”
“All of Weatherby’s threats recently?” It was Aria to speak. She was getting irritated. He could see it in the way she moved and the tone of her voice. “I know he’s a captain on your police force, but do you have any idea how bad he is to deal with personally? The guy trespasses, lies, steals, and bullies to get what he wants. I’m sick of it. And you should be too. I can’t imagine he’s an angel at work.”
Laredo could tell by their looks that Paul Weatherby was anything but an angel to deal with at work, but none of these poor cops were going to say a word against him for fear that someone would tattle. The amount of fear power that man wielded was horrible to contemplate.
“Someday,” Laredo told them all. “You should consider getting together and honestly talking amongst yourselves about that man and what he has done. I bet you’d all find that you’ve been equally wronged by the man.”
“Maybe,” the sergeant allowed. “Until that time, we have to play by the rules.”
“Right.” Aria snorted and then she waved. “I’m going back to my house. You guys have fun trying to figure out how getting your vehicles crushed by employees of one of your captains on his orders is playing by the rules. I’m not going to stand for this bullshit anymore. And you can tell good old Weatherby that’s what I said.”
Laredo had never been so proud of another person before. Or rather he’d just never had that feeling that the woman he was with—that he wanted to be with—was so strong and capable. It was both shocking and gratifying. This was not a woman who needed him to take care of her. Aria was a woman who was strong and confident in her own way. This was a partner.
She climbed back on her ATV and waved to Laredo. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Did that mean she wanted him to stay with her? And why was he worrying about this right now? Didn’t they have enough on their plate without adding his strange romantic foibles to the list? Sometimes Laredo wished that life had a script. He could follow along, make the appropriate comments, and things would eventually turn out exactly as they were supposed to. Of course, there was also the possibility that by not having a script, he could eventually witness something truly unexpected in a pleasant way. Not that he’d hold his breath for that to happen.