Fistful of Reefer

Fistful of Reefer: scene sixteen

“Now I ain’t saying that I don’t appreciate your help with this, McCutchen, but I’m sure you got more important things to tend to than a case of missing goats.” Sheriff Lickter lifted his hat to sop the sweat off his brow with his sleeve.

“Just keep those toothless goat-ropers out of the way so I can take a good look around without them fouling up the area more than they already have.” McCutchen moved his gaze slowly around the scene at the Upper San Felipe Springs and shook his head. It was a mess. Goat tracks littered the area. Trails led in and out of the valley at every possibility. Where hooves had sunk in the mud during the wet season the ground had crusted over, leaving the surface pockmarked worse than the moon.

“Dad gummit, you fellers back on outta here and give the ranger some room.” Lickter did his best to take control of the situation despite being the odd man out.

McCutchen took a knee to investigate what looked like dried blood. The ranchers had already hauled off and buried the dead goats out of concern for disease. Damn fools were afraid a demon figment of their imagination would end up contagious. Why were people always last to blame their own damn ignorance? You want a chupacabra to take the blame, start with the collective consciousness of the ignorant.

He turned over a cracked section of crusted dirt to confirm the blood had soaked through. This was definitely where one of the goats had bled out, ten feet from the edge of the nearest pool. A few feet away, at the base of a yaupon holly, something caught his eye—a dried, green crust too far from the water to be moss. The ranchers, and everyone else for that matter, could have their damn El Chupacabra. He was hunting for criminals, enemies of the state, growing marihuana in the Catholic Hills.

He stood and took a moment to let the blood circulate evenly through his body again. He’d found regurgitated roughage, barf. Vicente may have been telling the truth. All the blathering about El Chupacabra seemed to be a ruse to cover the fact some goats got colic from eating too much marihuana. If they came down here to get a drink it would have killed them.

A branch snapped in the brush at the bottom of the springs. Instinctively he drew his Colts and ducked for cover. At the same moment a rifle crack came from behind him. He spun, one gun leveled on the brush with the other pointed at an ecstatic rancher gesticulating wildly while smoke rose from the barrel of his rifle.

“I got that damn thing! I got it, right down there in the bog.”

McCutchen jumped up with his Colt leveled at the rancher who still held his rifle aimed in the ranger’s general direction. “Dammit Sheriff. You keep them men under control before they kill someone. Or before they force me too.” He stared the rancher down until he lowered his weapon. His point made, McCutchen turned back toward the brush which was rustling again. Walking quickly toward the sound he confirmed his suspicion—goats. Still, he jumped when he saw their condition.

The rancher who’d taken the shot piped up, “What is it? Is it the monster?”

McCutchen stood his ground while an Angora goat twitched and writhed in the mud at his feet. Its bloated stomach vented an awful gas from where the bullet had torn through it. The normal spatter of dark, red blood washed away with a spew of green foam that boiled and spurted from the opening.

Behind the lead animal several others stumbled down the slope of the valley toward the water, their eyes rolling back into their heads. Their stomachs looked as though they’d snag on the brush and burst. He followed the trail back up the slope with his eyes as far as he could. It was something. At least he knew this trail could lead back to the marihuana, although it would probably lead him back and forth across thousands of acres before he found it.

Finally he turned back toward the sheriff and the ranchers. “You killed a goat.”

“I didn’t kill no damn goat.” The ranchers pushed their way past Lickter, despite his protests, to get a closer look. But they stopped when they came eye to eye with McCutchen striding up out of the bottom toward them.

He froze the ringleader with a glare. “Have a look.” Dismissing them with a jerk of his head, he caught the sheriff by the arm before he could follow the others. “Tell me about these hills.”

“What?” Lickter looked confused. “The Catholic Hills?”

“Exactly. Like for beginners, why do they call them the Catholic Hills?”

But before Lickter could respond the ranchers cut him off. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary!”

“What in God’s name done happened to ‘em?”

“It’s too late. The demon got ‘em. They’ve gone crazy from it.”

“We gotta put ‘em down.”

McCutchen turned toward the ranchers just in time to see dirt kick up at their feet. Thunder rolled across the valley as a rifle crack came from atop the northern ridge. The shot came from a distance, but close enough to be lethal. Then rapidly came another—this one tearing through the end of a rancher’s boot.

“Dammit! He shot my foot!”

Realization sank into the ranchers’ wooden skulls, and they dove for cover. Lickter made a dash for the horses, but McCutchen didn’t budge. He watched the ridge line intently, trying to spot the source of the shots. When another one came he saw the muzzle flare just before it whizzed past him, striking the thicket of mountain laurel where the horses were tied. This time both he and Lickter ducked for cover behind an immature hackberry tree and stand of scrub oak. More bullets struck the brush where the ranchers had crash landed.

McCutchen gave a shrill two-toned whistle with a trill at the end. Within moments his horse, Chester V, galloped around the laurel to join them. McCutchen, who never tied his horse, flung himself into the saddle as another bullet tore into the bark of the hackberry tree. Lickter did his best to find the source and return fire, but his .45 wasn’t much count from this distance. The ranchers, armed with rifles, blindly peppered the bluff with bullets.

Nothing slowed the torrent of lead flying at them from above, almost too fast for a single man. McCutchen lashed Chester and the two of them shot off to the east trying to clear the line of fire and find a way around to the northern slope.

As they reached a full gallop hot lead yanked McCutchen’s hat from his head, leaving it dangling by a cord around his neck. It was either a damn good shot only missing the mark by inches, or an even better shot intended to toy with him. The ranger seethed with anger as he spurred Chester on. Either way, the situation had gone well beyond personal.