cobra and the delinquents 7 cliffie bonus

 

Chapter 7 arresting the fuzz

 

The beeves went crazy and we barely made it onto the hill in time. Cattle don’t like going up hill, but the girls clung together as the beeves streamed past the small knoll on either side, an unguessable number of tons of plunging hooves. 

“Wait here,” I said, as the cattle finally had all passed. I rode down to where the cops were sitting in rigid terror in their cars. The cars had a few dents from hooves in them.

“Who is in charge here?” I demanded.

“I am; I’m Sergeant Stanovsky and you are….”

“You’re under arrest for child endangerment!” I yelled. “How dare you stampede those cattle! Have you been paid off to assassinate any of these high-profile children? Don’t tell me you didn’t do it on purpose to hurt them, you know this is cattle country and you could have killed them all, if one of the kids had not had quick ears, and if we had not had a high place to make to!  Several very wealthy men will have their lawyers on you!” I glared. “And so will I for the damage to my cattle through terrifying them, and for the danger to my own sisters and wards amongst the children here, you moronic little shit-for-brains!”

“I… I… you can’t arrest me!” he squealed.

“Yes, I bloody can; Federal Agent,” I said, getting out my warrant card. “You two! Take him in charge, or I’ll have you under arrest too.”

“But… but I came to arrest you!”

“A likely story,” I sneered. “By stampeding cattle? Who paid you to assassinate whom?  Well, we can interrogate you later about that.  On what charge, may I ask are you supposed to arrest me?”

“I… for killing five agents of James Thomson McNeal!” he squeaked.

I blinked.

I activated my phone.

“Mr. McNeal?” I said.

“Yes, has Jamie told you any more?” he said.

“Not a lot,” I lied. “He’s out here having his life put at risk by one Sergeant Stanovsky who wants to arrest me for supposedly killing five of your agents.  What agents where those?”

I had it on speaker.

“Agents of mine? What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Mr. McNeal! Your wife called me and said that she had reason to suppose that Mr. Horace Tiber had killed the men and the surveillance expert you sent to watch over your son!” shouted Stanovsky.

“Who is this idiot?” asked McNeal. “Is Jamie all right?”

“Yes, he’s with the others, and we managed to get up onto a knoll,” I said.

“Dad, Mr. Tiber saved my life!” Jamie had ridden down, and shoved his face in. “He heaved me up onto my horse and slapped it on the rump. I wouldn’t have mounted and got out of danger on my own, I’ve never been so scared in my life!”

“I’m glad to hear your voice, son,” said McNeal. “Hey, Starsky or whatever your name is, I never sent any men, and whoever phoned you, I don’t suppose it was my wife, just some trouble maker. And I’ll be suing you too, for endangerment of a minor.”

“I didn’t mean…” Stanovsky petered out.

“Stampeding a couple of hundred head of beeves towards a group of children is unconscionable,” I snapped.

“Hell, yes!” said McNeal. “I know nothing about ranching, but dammit! We’ve all seen trid shows. It must be deliberate; you get the Feds in, Tiber, and let them sort it out.”

“It wasn’t deliberate!” wailed Stanovsky. “I asked Mrs. Tiber where you were, and she said riding the range with the kids, and… and I had no idea all those awful beasts were there!”

“What the hell do you think a ranch does, you moron?” I demanded. “And why do you think they were riding the range?”

“Er… for fun?” he said. “Here! You can’t employ minors in a dangerous occupation!”

“Don’t start digging more legal holes for you to fall in, Stanovsky,” I said. “Those who are my wards are allowed by law to take part in a family business, and the rest are here on the orders of Judges in the same manner as some go to boot camp.”

He spluttered.

“Take him back to the ranch,” I said to his fellows. “Willow will have called in FBI backup by now. We have to round up and bring back the cattle.”

“I’m scared,” said Jamie. “They are so big!”

“But they’ll come to the call,” I told him, “And you will learn to control them. Just watch me and copy.”

I did call out the other cow pokes for a bit of help, and told them what had happened.  One of them spat tobacco at a fly on his horse’s ear, knocking it off.

“City folk,” he said, as if it was the dirtiest word in the language. To him, it probably was.

 

It took us two hours to get those cattle quieted down and back in the pasture they were supposed to be in, and I sent the kids in to take turns to call their parents to ask for their lawyers to stand with mine in suing the county.

Tarquin had turned up when we got to the ranch house.

“Rick, what has happened? This fool policeman says he was sent to look for evidence of a protective team.”

“If it ever existed,” I said. “I haven’t seen anyone around, and if I had, I’d have beaten the stuffing out of them if they didn’t approach honestly and with a good reason for being here.”

“Yes, you can’t compromise with the safety of children,” agreed Tarquin.

“We were supposed to look for evidence of the disposal of bodies and the car they had,” said one of the other cops, deferentially.

“And you have a search warrant, of course?” I said.

“Uh… the lady said the car would be in plain sight and would be probable cause,” he said.

“Well, by all means, waste police resources looking for cars and bodies that don’t exist,” I said. “Except the one in custody, Tarquin, a man in cattle country who drives cars with sirens out over fields where there are kids herding the cattle; it surely has to be more to it than some spurious and vague accusation of murder of non-existent people – I think he was hired to kill either me, or one of the kids.”

“I can’t see any other explanation,” said Tarquin. “You’d have to be a total cretin to stampede cattle towards children if you hadn’t planned the death of one or more of them.”

“But… but I didn’t realise there were cattle!  I thought it was just like a camp for kids!” Stanovsky stuttered. “I didn’t think they’d really have cows!”

“A ranch.” I said. “Hell, man, even dude ranches have beeves. Even though they may be placid – but even placid cows can be stirred up by blues and twos.”

“They… they’re so big!” said Stanovsky.

“Well, yes,” I said. “That’s why we ride horses, to give us the same sort of size. Because normally one is only dealing with one beast at a time. Because cattle aren’t supposed to stampede.  It is bad for them, and if any of the calves die, that will go on your bill.  The loss of milk will go on your bill. You’ve fucked over the whole year’s milking because they’ve most of them likely gone dry.”

He collapsed in on himself.

I left the rest of the cops searching for any signs of a car and its occupants.

Ruth brought one of them in, tied up.

“I want this pervert prosecuted!” she cried. “He hammered on the door of our bunkhouse, and we had all stripped down, because we stank of sweat, and we were taking turns in the shower and tub, and I called out ‘Just a minute,’ to give us the chance to get decent, and he kicked in the door. And I still haven’t had my bath!I was a necked as a jaybird, because I was hot, and he certainly took his time taking an eyeful, he did not even shut his eyes or turn around.”

“I… I thought they might be concealing evidence,” said the officer.

“A likely story,” said Ruth. “A teenage girl calls out to wait, and any normal person knows she’s not dressed, you burst in to cop an eyeful of eye candy. And we’re all jail bait, mister, so that makes you a pervert.”

I now had two sobbing policemen under arrest, and it was their own fault for arrogance.

Tarquin was unsympathetic; Hana was his adoptive daughter, even though Willow and I were raising her. And he knew what she and Ruth had both been through.

What, were you wondering if they found anything? Bite your tongue. In a proper chop shop furnace not a trace of recognisable bone remained. Pity about that, with the slag, it wasn’t going to be any use as compost any more, and Auntie had been murmuring about a rose garden. Still, it was another reversal for Sylvia, who was now in trouble with the police, as Stanovsky’s boss would be wanting to know what she was doing, wasting police time.

Hammond was praised for his skills by the cop who found him, and asked what he was doing.

“Building an all-terrain camper so Mr. Tiber can take us all out into the desert safely,” he said. The thing had two engines, the souped up engine of the crooklimo and the truck engine, which was also souped up by the time Hammond had finished with it. It was the ugliest vehicle I had ever seen, but it was sturdy and solid, all eight wheels were driven, and it was understood that the camper was for my own family with tents for anyone else; but  with the bunks also fitted with seat belts for sitting on. He had managed to convert them to being more like racing belts for added security. The boy was a genius in his own way, and I was impressed, and said so.

“How long has he been working on this?” asked the cop.

“Oh, just the couple of days since he arrived,” I said. “I’d got the basics of it sorted out, but never had time to get much further. I couldn’t have done it as well in the time he’s had.”

That implied that it had been a project long in preparation, and that Hammond had done some tinkering, which denigrated his skills, but then, we did not want the fuzz to know that the long vehicle had once been a black limousine which had somehow mated with a truck, tractor wheels, and an old caravan.

“I don’t think I can make it amphibious,” said Hammond, apologetically.

“I am sure we’ll survive that,” I said.

“I’m attaching an attachment on the roof to run the canvas we have down to the ground; I’m not sure about putting in ends or flaps,” he said. “But I though it might have both guys and pockets to fill with stones, like in Mr. Silverheels’s book about survival.”

He’d read that as well as car manuals? I was impressed.

And he had worked out a way to use the tarp which had covered the truck in its original state.

“You’ll want fixing points down the side of the vehicle for the front and rear of the half-tent,” I said. “If it’s attached as two triangles and laces to the attachments on eyelets,  one can be used as a door and laced loosely when in use.”

He nodded.

“And can choose which one to use depending on the wind,” he said.

“I can sew that,” I said. “I have heavy thread and canvas needles, and we wax it to keep it watertight. As with the pockets.”

He nodded. His hands were barely shaking at all now, even though it would still be several days for the muck to clear his body; keeping busy was a good way of handling the withdrawal.

When the cops had gone, he turned to me.

“You have a life which is more exciting than any drug. Can I stay with you when my sentence is up?”

“You may, from my point of view,” I said. “But what about your father?”

“He doesn’t understand that I have a life outside of studying hard and getting a degree in business management, and going into politics,” he said. “He wants me to be mini-him. He follows in granddad’s footsteps and can’t see why I would hate it.”

“Hammond,” I said, “Listen to me seriously.  I grew up in and out of foster homes and Juvie Hall. I had no formal education. Every degree I hold is because I learned what was needful the hard way, through reading, night school, more reading, learning by trial and error, and sheer good luck at times. I’ve nearly died a few times for the want of knowledge, and plugged those holes in my education to stop it happening again. I’m almost thirty, and I’m still learning, as anyone with any sense is.  But I have emeritus degrees courtesy of the FBI even though I know the stuff, I don’t always know it in the right way.  You can come and live with me when you’ve graduated from senior high, and are of age. And I’ll have you in the holidays if you want. But you have an opportunity I would have killed for, in having a good school to go to, and the chance to get a good bit of education under your belt. I’ll give you remedial classes if you want them, to catch up; but I don’t feel able to teach to too high a level. My knowledge is eclectic; I can teach degree level math in some subjects, and have to read up to help my remedial class of fourteen year olds in other things. And at times, I struggle. But you can do it the easy way, if you buckle down to it, stay clean of drugs, be a total nurd’s nurd for… what, three years? And if you do that, I’ll go all out to be your family.”

He considered.

“Three years. Yes, I’m fifteen. I can handle it.”

“Good man. You can always run home to me any weekend things get rough, and I’ll do my best to sort things out. But, I expect top grades in physics, math, and chemistry if you want to learn higher engineering for working a chop shop.”

“I can do that,” said Hammond. “I say, shall I mount a popup minigun on the rear of the camper?”

I almost said ‘no;’ but then, I thought, actually, with my luck, it might not be a bad idea.

“Why not?” I said.