Hunter Moon (11 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Rebranding. That was the charge against Izzie.

Clay stood aside as Gabe read Izzie her rights and then asked her if she had any questions. She was crying now and asked Clay to call her mother. Gabe put her in the back of his cruiser and closed the door. Clay grabbed his arm before his brother swung into the unit. Clay motioned with his head, and Gabe followed him a few feet from the vehicle.

“How did this happen?” asked Clay.

“Pizarro got a complaint of missing cattle. So he sent someone over to Izzie’s place to do a count. There’s a discrepancy in the number of the cattle she has and the number they released from quarantine.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Who made the count?”

“Victor Bustros. Pizarro asked him to go over to Izzie’s place.”

Victor was the branding inspector for Black Mountain, Clay knew, responsible for keeping track of every brand for every Black Mountain rancher and all the brands for the tribe members who kept a cow or two in the tribe’s communal herd. But he worked with Boone Pizarro.

“This stinks.”

“Maybe. Anyway, Victor went at sunup. Carol gave permission for him to have a look. He found she had too many cattle, and so he checked the brands. Some of her cattle had been recently branded.”

“That’s not illegal.”

“They’d been branded over a previous brand.”

“Whose?”

“Those belonging to Floyd Patch.”

Clay struggled to find an explanation. “
Patch
was the one missing cattle?”

“Yeah.”

“And they assumed Izzie took them?”

“There’s been a lot of activity up there. Logical to check the neighbors. She’d been driving cattle, possible that some of his got out and mixed with hers. They didn’t think she stole them. Floyd’s fences aren’t well maintained. We pick up his cattle all the time. In fact I would have bet my paycheck they were his cows out on the highway that day.”

“But they were Izzie’s cattle.”

Clay rocked back as if Gabe had punched him in the gut. He glanced back at the cruiser to see Izzie staring at him. Clay’s gut churned as the disbelief gave way to a far worse feeling, the feeling of being used yet again.

“It would explain why she has been registering record numbers of calves year after year. She could have just been collecting Patch’s strays.”

“But wouldn’t he notice the loss of cattle?”

“Apparently he did. This time, anyway.” Gabe glanced back at the cruiser, checking on his prisoner.

“This is a mistake.”

“You sure about that?” asked Gabe.

“She’s not a thief.”

“You said the same thing about Martin.”

His brother’s words struck him like a second punch to the gut. Was it possible? Had Izzie been so desperate to make ends meet that she’d do something like this?

“Why? Why would she?”

“To cover her mother’s debts. She’s been paying them off. I checked. It’s a lot, Clay.”

He thought he might throw up.

“Would explain the cut fences. It would be a good place to bring in the stolen calves.”

“You don’t have any evidence to support that.” Why was he defending her?

Gabe shrugged. “Just starting to gather evidence now.”

“You drive her through the middle of town in the back of your unit, and it will ruin her reputation. You know that.” Clay knew what it was like to take that ride. The shame and the humiliation. He’d done so himself, in Gabe’s cruiser, up to police headquarters. Fingerprinted, photographed. He shuddered.

“It’s my job. I have enough to charge her. She’ll face tribal court within the month.”

Clay grabbed his arm. “She can’t be in jail for a month. She’s got a ranch to run.”

“I’m sure her mother will bail her out.”

“With what?”

“She’s still got cattle. Donner released half her herd.” Gabe looked at his arm, where Clay still held him. Clay let him go. “I warned you, little brother. I told you to keep clear of her.”

What if they were all right about her? What if Izzie was involved with the meth lab up in her pasture, and she was rustling cattle? What if she had been playing him, using him, even sleeping with him to get his help? Had she hired him to find the culprit or just to hide her own tracks? Clay swayed, feeling as unsteady as a dead tree in a heavy snow.

“I best get going,” said Gabe. He paused and turned back. “Oh, Kino called Grandma. He found the BIA officer who took Jovanna from the scene and got the name of her case manager.”

The news did not bring the joy it should have. Clay stared at Izzie, who stared back at him, her head lifted in stoic pride belied by the tear stains that streaked her cheeks. Was she the woman he thought he knew or a stranger?

It was happening all over again. He was mixed up in something, and once more his tribe would either assume he was a coconspirator or the stupidest man alive.

Gabe got into his car, stretching his safety belt across his body before turning on the ignition. From the seat behind him, Izzie lifted her hand in farewell. Clay kept his hands at his sides as they pulled away.

He stood in the yard long after the dust had settled and the birdsong had returned. Long enough for his toes to get cold and for him to realize that he was barefooted and shirtless.

Izzie had been arrested. And she’d been here, with the brother of the police chief, when they had found the rebranded cattle. Was she really that calculating?

Martin had been.

The thought of making another mistake, of trusting the wrong person and ruining what was left of his reputation, filled him with an icy cold. His ears buzzed as if he stood underneath a nest of hornets, and his stomach ached. Izzie wouldn’t do that to him, would she? He rubbed his knuckles over his chest at the ache that was deeper than skin and muscle and bone. He thought about Gabe coming back for him. Charging him with some damn thing, like conspiracy or failure to report a crime, which was about the same charge as before and showed he didn’t have an ounce of sense when it came to judging peoples’ intentions.

How was it he could read sign but couldn’t read the truth in a person’s words?

“Not again,” he said.

Time to cut his losses and protect what little reputation he had left. Clay returned to the house to retrieve his phone. He would call Izzie’s mother, as he had promised, and then put Isabella Nosie and her troubles behind him.

He might just talk to Mr. Donner and then drive on up to South Dakota for a long weekend. See if he could help Kino and Lea find that case manager and locate their sister. That’s where his allegiance should be, with his family. Hadn’t he once told Kino the same, when his little brother had been hell-bent on finding their father’s killer, instead of helping Gabe and Clyne in their search for Jovanna? Now he was guilty of the same thing.

Clay located his phone and saw three messages. The first two were from Gabe alerting him that he was coming to his house to arrest Izzie. Clay now thought to wonder how Gabe knew that Izzie was with him and realized that he’d likely gone to Izzie’s place first and then made a logical guess. That meant that Izzie’s mom already knew her daughter was in trouble and where she had spent the night. The third message was from Kino, telling him the good news. His brother sounded jubilant, and the happiness in his voice only made Clay feel worse.

Clay pushed the hair from his face and sank into a seat at the kitchen table, contacting something soft. He pivoted to find Izzie’s coat still draped across the back of the chair. He dragged it from its place and hugged the sheepskin sheath to his chest, breathing in the scent of leather, the horses she loved and sacred sage.

His words came in Apache squeezing through his tightening vocal cords. “Ah, Medicine Root Woman. Did you use me, too?”

* * *

C
LAY
DIDN
’
T
ACTUALLY
remember showering or getting dressed. But he did remember making coffee, because he burned his hand on the old percolator pot he used on the stove.

His phone rang, and he checked the caller ID. It was police headquarters. He stared, knowing that his brother would call from his mobile if he needed to speak to Clay. So that meant this was Izzie calling him from jail.

He stood looking at his phone until it stopped ringing. Then he waited. She didn’t leave a message. Clay stared at the missed-call notice. He just couldn’t deal with her problems anymore.

He turned away. Took two steps into the kitchen, gathered his truck keys and stopped. Clay remembered making that call. He remembered when all his friends vanished and the only ones who stuck by him were his family. Who did Izzie have? A judgmental, demanding mother? Two kid brothers? She needed him to believe her, and he’d done just what everyone once did to him, assumed she was lying. Clay redialed the number and was told that Izzie was in processing, and she had already used her phone call. She’d called her mother. But he knew that she had called him first, and he hadn’t been there for her.

Truth from lies. That’s what it all boiled down to. Did Clay believe Izzie or did he believe the evidence of the rebranded cattle found among Izzie’s quarantined herd?

Clay slipped his phone in his pocket and gripped his truck keys in his fist. Izzie was being set up. He felt it. And he should have believed her when Gabe escorted her out. She wasn’t using him like his old dearly departed friend, Martin. She was asking for help from a friend.

During his eighteen months away, he’d learned to climb and navigate. He’d learned to meditate and to engage in trust activities. And he’d trusted the other guys there with his life. But he’d never trusted anyone with his heart. Until now.

If Izzie was playing him, then he’d find out the hard way, just like he did everything else. He was not leaving Izzie on her own in jail. He couldn’t. Because he still loved her.

Clay called his boss but got Veronica. He wasn’t coming in today. He had to help a friend.

Then he headed over to the police station in Black Mountain.

There he was told to go to work as he couldn’t see her until after processing. Clay knew what that meant, remembered every detail, right down to the gray-green chipping paint on the bars of the holding cell. Clay hung his head in shame as he recalled how he had just stood there as his brother drove Izzie to jail. What had he been thinking?

He couldn’t get to her, so he went to work, not to the livestock offices.

His brother had enough evidence to make an arrest. His brother was a very good judge of character, but when he erred it was on the side of being too cautious. He didn’t leap before he looked. That was why he was who he was and why Clay was about to take the biggest leap of his life.

Because he was going to prove her innocent and get her out of jail.

The place to begin was where this had started, Izzie’s land. Clay headed back over to Izzie’s pastures to see if there was anything he had missed at the original sight. He hadn’t, but he did find something newer by several days, a portion of the fence that had been cut and expertly mended. He also found tire tracks and boot tracks, two sets. He called Gabe who came over.

“I’ll photograph them,” said Gabe. “What do you reckon?”

“Only reason to break a fence is to let something out or in.” Clay pointed at the ground. “See?”

Gabe squatted and looked, but Clay thought his brother didn’t really see.

“Cattle tracks?” said Gabe.

“No,” said Clay. “Those are too small for cattle. Have to be calves. Old enough to be weaned, from the size. And they are coming in, not out.”

Gabe stood and dusted the sand off his knee.

“I’m going to talk to Patch,” said Clay.

“No, you are not. You’re not interfering with my investigation, or I’ll arrest you, too.”

Gabe must have
seen Clay’s face redden, or maybe it was the intake of breath. Anyway, Gabe removed his hat and ran his thumb over the brim, silent for a moment. Then he faced his younger brother.

“I’m sorry, Clay. But you need to let me do my job.”

Clay wanted to tell him to do it then. Or yell at Gabe that he was trying to help him. But he just managed to hold his tongue. Clay stared at Gabe, who rested his hands on his hips and scowled.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Gabe.

“Come with me to see Patch. I’m sure these are the kind of boots he wears.”

“Lots of folks have construction boots.”

“I’ll match them.”

“What do you think he did, exactly?”

Clay studied the ground. “Someone chased Izzie’s cows out through the cut a few days ago. She’ll prove it when she gets her hearing. Here someone has added cattle to her herd. Gabe, someone is messing with her.”

Gabe nodded, agreeing with that. “This cut is newer. See how the tracks are dried all round? Yesterday.”

Gabe’s mouth went grim. “You think someone rebranded those cows with Izzie’s brand and then set them loose in her pasture.”

“Yes.”

Gabe’s eyes shifted down the hillside. “How did they get her brand?”

Clay shook his head, unsure.

“Let’s go have a talk with Floyd,” said Gabe.

Clay grinned, feeling the first ray of hope finally breaking through the clouds that had surrounded him all day.

Gabe nodded, and the two drove down the hill to Floyd’s place. They got out of their respective vehicles together and headed to Floyd’s home, where they were met by his sister, Celia Batista. She lived there with her husband, Ron, who worked the place with Floyd. Celia had a round face, dark eyes squeezed by her pudgy cheeks and a body that seemed a series of ever-increasing rings of fat. She wore a shapeless flowered shirt, knit slacks and flip-flops pressed flat from overuse. Celia directed them to the barn.

“There’s soft sand out here in the drive. Get him out here so I can see his tracks,” said Clay.

“Wait here.” Gabe left him and returned a few minutes later chatting with Floyd. “Just need you to sign a complaint,” said his brother, motioning to the truck.

Floyd’s smile dropped when he saw Clay. “What’s he doing here?”

“Asked him to come on out to read some sign.”

Floyd’s stride lost its confident swing. He seemed less willing to follow Gabe out on to the dirt drive. Gabe looked back, waiting.