Carnosaur Crimes (12 page)

Chapter 16

“When the wisdom keepers speak, all should listen.”

Seneca

Ansel sucked in a warm lung-full of air rushing through the open driver's window. The sky was cloudless and azure blue, typical for Big Sky country, and she was determined to enjoy the comparably cool, high-seventies temperatures while she could. According to the news, the sun would be a wood-burner by noon.

She peeled the truck along a Diamond Tail dirt road and surveyed Permelia's drought-ravaged grasslands. They looked like the Arrowhead's except they were stippled by red and white Texas Longhorns rather than Black Angus. Permelia operated one of the few Montana ranches that bred the registered heifers, steers, and seedstock bulls.

She knew a little about the breed from her father. They were originally descended from cattle brought to Spain by African Moors, then imported into Mexico and America. Both sexes carried lengthy horns spanning up to eighty-four inches. Ansel watched as older genders trundled across the pastures, looking ready to topple onto the ground from sheer top heaviness.

She reached the late 1800's vintage farmhouse constructed from ponderosa planking painted bright white and parked by a corral where Permelia stood beside a tall bay horse. Gone were her fancy, neon pink clothes and accessories. She wore denim ranch duds, navy boots, and a floppy blue hat. Despite her years and rail-thin stature, she released the cinch buckle around the horse's belly, slid the heavy western saddle off, then tossed it onto the top rail as easily as a young cowhand.

Ansel dragged her large leather portfolio case out of the truck. Dust swirled with every step she took, while the smell of hay, horse lather, and dung assailed her nostrils. It made her long for the days when she had ridden War Bonnet, a birthday gift from her mother twenty-years before, over coulees and through cottonwood stands. That was impossible now. The old paint stallion had laminitis and spent his days paddocked or brushing grass with his tail.

Permelia patted the gelding affectionately and joined her near the porch. “Howdy, Ansel. Glad you could make it. Gonna be another neck-blister today. I hear there's a passel of Canadian forest fires and dust storms up north. Hope Saskatoon dust and smoke doesn't blow our way.”

“God forbid,” Ansel said, with abhorrence.

Between fires and dust storms, the black blizzards of the Dust Bowl days were most feared by everyone. Lands ravaged by fire renewed themselves. Not so with the dust tsunamis that churned across rangelands with winds up to eighty miles an hour and flattened everything from power poles to sixty-five foot grain bins. Worst of all, the winds stripped topsoil and rocks from local fields or dumped it in dunes behind windbreaks. The results left only sandy soils behind and removed all the nutrients needed to grow healthy crops.

“You throw a mean saddle, Mrs. Chance.”

“Call me, Permelia. I've known you since you were in my beginner's riding classes. Only strangers and gentlemen call me by my married name, and I don't trust any of them. Especially the men. You do what I do, Ansel. Always throw your own saddle. Taking responsibility for yourself makes you strong. It's as true with life as it is with riding.”

Ansel smiled as she remembered taking a summer's worth of classes from Permelia when she was ten years old. Permelia had instructed girls in the skills of western riding for over thirty years and she was still teaching them.

“I intend to.”

“Good girl.” Permelia scanned the heavens. “Curse this heat. L.C. Smith died this morning from it.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Ansel proclaimed. “That must be a terrible shock. Was he here long?”

“About seventeen years. He went down sudden-like. Saw him yesterday and he was Jim Dandy. Got to be crucible-hot to bring down a Butler bred stud that'll go for days without water and live on weeds, cactus, and brush. Let's wet our whiskers.”

Only then did Ansel realize she referred to a disceased Longhorn, not a respected top-hand. Chagrined, she followed across the porch, and through a squeaky, wood-scrolled screen door. As soon as they entered, the maniacal yelps of a dog locked inside a room echoed down a hallway.

The noise receded in Ansel's mind as she marveled at the inside, which looked like a sitting room straight out of the early 1900s. Gazing at the well worn, four piece, hardwood parlor suite upholstered in three-tone floral velours with bottom fringes, fancy bindings, and rococo brass gimp ornamentation was like time traveling.

Her eyes also took in the graceful lines of a birch parlor cabinet with ornamental wood shelves, two center bevel-plate mirrors, and narrow legs. In the dining area sat an immensely heavy golden oak table with five inch hand-turned and fluted legs with matching chairs. A combination sideboard and glass closet was filled by flowered china with gold edging. Ansel was yanked back to the present by Starr's vocables, which had become keening howls.

“Just have to breed them heifers to somebody else,” Permelia continued at warp speed. “Maybe Six-Shooter or Pistolo. Got my foreman dressing down L.C. Smith right now. We'll have meat aplenty and another hide and set of horns to sell to city folk. Take a seat, Ansel,” Permelia directed, tossing her hat on a spring-loaded parlor chair. “Any news about Chief Flynn?”

Ansel sank into the couch that looked as if a thousand rumps had kept it warm for her and adjusted her case so she could paw through it easily. She shook her head. “Nothing much except that the state police are involved now. It looks like foul play.”

“Seems like somebody might have ambushed him, all right. I'm praying for him and the family. I remember when you could ride anywhere alone for days in Lacrosse, stop at any ranch along the road day or night, and be guaranteed a friendly welcome whether they knew you or not. Got nothing worse than mean gossip and bad grub. The world's turning sour.”

Permelia's hawk-eyes shifted to Ansel. “Guess you know about Rusty Flynn?”

Ansel's head snapped up from her fussing with the portfolio zipper. She hadn't heard that name spoken around her in years. Everyone made a point of not repeating it to her. Rusty Flynn had been eight years old when he pushed her into the pond.

“Rusty? He's in prison.”

“Not any more. He got out a year ago. He's living in Swoln. Used to come by here every once in a while last fall. Sold me braided horsehair key chains he learned to make in the Wyoming hoosegow. I'd buy a few from him and give them out to the sick kids at the hospital. It's uncharitable for me to say it, but Rusty's an oily one. He's always polite and charming, but he's got the ‘dare me' eyes of a sand scorpion. I don't trust him and I quit encouraging him to come around. Now I'm wondering if he has anything to do with the Chief gone missing.”

Anger flushed through Ansel's veins as she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that Rusty was in Lacrosse. Had been for quite a while, and her father or Pearl hadn't even told her. No wonder her father had the willies if Rusty was hunkering in the background shadows of Cullen's affairs.

Cullen had always kept an eye on his only nephew after his brother Colm died. It was the Irish way to overlook your clan be they sparrow or hawk. As Cullen's friend and confidante, there was no doubt in her mind that her father was informed the minute Rusty returned. The paternal betrayal of trust bloated her rage. What if she'd accidentally run into Rusty during her travels?

“I didn't mean to rile you,” Permelia assured. “I thought you knew. Let's forget about it. How about something to drink? What's your pleasure? Coffee, iced tea, soda pop, water?”

. “A Coke would be fine, if you have it.” Ansel said, feigning joviality.

“I believe I do. I'll be back. Make yourself at home.”

Starr quit howling and went into stage three of her disgruntled repertoire. This consisted of fierce, low-level growls and claws scratching against wood. The howls could have been her own, Ansel thought, stewing over Permelia's news. She ignored the dog and tried to calm herself by observing the mementos around her. The old fashioned gray wallpaper with festoons of old- rose daisies with green foliage supported a passel of framed black and white photos. The pictures showed horses, mules, cattle, and scenic views of mountain ranges or large river bends.

There were some other photos of men setting along an ancient sideboard table against a wall. Each was distinctive in his own way. One clean-cut, young blond man wore a 1940's Marine Corps uniform. Another long-haired, older man wore his best cowboy dress, and a third brown-bearded man wore a nice suit and tie. Permelia's three husbands, Ansel surmised, each as different in face and stature as the other.

Elsewhere Indian pottery lining ceiling shelves around the room added more gay colors to the mish-mash of busy floral fabrics covering the old furniture. A corner shelving unit beside a window was crammed with verdant succulents; aloe, flowering cactus, or hen and chicks.

Everything was neat and orderly, what she'd expect from Permelia who was well known for her simple and punctilious business practices. The woman was a whiz at investment foresight or market speculation. She had to be or she would never have survived keeping the original Diamond Tail land parcels intact amidst the predatory circling of government officials or nature conservancy advocates who had great disdain for the old ranching traditions like open range grazing and private water rights.

Permelia returned bearing a small wood serving tray with two tall glasses filled with ice and a quart glass pitcher filled with fizzing brown Coke, forks, and two dessert plates, each containing a freshly cut square of home-baked crumb cake. She set it on the white coffee table. “Help yourself. I quieted Starr down. Gave her a dried cow hoof.”

Ansel noticed that the house was quiet. Hands shaking from anxiety, she poured Coke into her glass, and said, “I brought my portfolio so you could see my artwork styles which include pen and ink, watercolors, acrylics, oils, or air brushing. I wasn't sure what you had in mind for the medium, composition or design of your book cover.”

Permelia poured herself a drink and grabbed one of the plates. “When it comes to style, I'm not picky about the fixings, just want a full belly. I'm sure you know best about those things, Ansel. What I'm looking for in a cover is something that looks like Montana and will grab your eye like a fish hook when you're passing by it at the store. Let me see what you've got.”

“I'm sure we'll find a technique you'll like,” Ansel assured. “What I'll do today is concentrate on the underlying picture, not the lettering for title, name, etc. I'll design that later. Keep in mind that these are mostly dinosaur subjects, but I can do any landscape or animal you're interested in. Portraiture takes me longer because I don't do much work in that area.”

Ansel unzipped the case and pulled out drawings she'd done over the years which reflected her different styles. She passed them one by one to Permelia in-between sips of her drink and bites of her delicious-tasting crumb cake. They ran through twelve pictures very quickly. Permelia was decisive about what types of perspective, shadowing, and detailing she liked. She didn't care for line drawings at all, no matter how detailed the subject. Nor did she like black and white. She wanted full color and tended toward realistic textures and methods rather than abstract or surrealistic techniques.

Knowing this, Ansel pulled out a recent full color acrylic test drawings of an Argentinosaurus that was rendered on smooth illustration board with dry brushed paints and air-brushed watercolors.

“Now this is what I want,” Permelia declared. “This critter looks like you could touch it and feel the bumps. How'd you make it look so real?”

“That's an old painting technique called gouache. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans painted with the precursor of modern gouache. This style relies on carefully controlling the painting of colors from dark to light or light over dark. Special paints and colors are used as very thin opaque layers continually placed on top or around each other. I often intermix gouache with watercolors as stains and air-brushing with regular acrylics in my projects that require absolute, photo-like realism.”

“Pharaohs and Caesars? You don't say. That settles it. This is the brand of paint I want on
Montana Chaps
.”

Ansel grinned and took the illustration board from Permelia's tan, wrinkled hand. “Great,” she said, muscling the large stiff board into her case, “Gouache it is.” As she fumbled with the preliminary drawing, the open end of the portfolio dipped off the sofa toward the floor. A whole sheaf of materials piled out, including one pen and ink drawing she didn't know was in there.

The sketch of the Giganatosaurus she'd drawn the morning after the museum robbery flew across the floor directly in front of Permelia. Ansel cringed. Somehow she had unknowingly grabbed it when she filled the case with drawing samples from her workroom. She should have thrown the damn thing away.

“Oh, I like this,” Permelia crowed, grabbing the drawing off the rug. “Somebody rang the grub bell. Look at them jaws. Hey, I got an idea. Let's use this for
Montana Chaps
except replace the little lizard with a cowboy on horseback. You know, a wrangler back-trailing from this critter. That cover will get attention, all right.”

Ansel's eyes widened. “I thought you wanted a very realistic cover. Perhaps a photo-like drawing of your homestead with longhorns or a collage of images. Maybe even something more symbolic? Maybe the Diamond Tail brand,” she offered hopefully.

“You can make this look real,” Permelia countered. “You've sure got the talent, gal. And this idea has the grit and gristle I'm looking for, especially with my family being involved with dinosaurs. Kinda draws the bones and broncos together, don't you think?” She leaned back and stared at the painting, her eyes sparkling and a grin stretching her lined face into a younger version of herself. “Can I keep this?”