Buck Fever (Blanco County Mysteries) (3 page)

THE DOMINOES BEGAN to fall on the afternoon of Friday, October 29.

Paul and Vicky Cromwell, co-owners of a small ad agency in Austin, were enjoying the sunshine along the shores of the Pedernales River west of Johnson City. He was lazily casting a fishing lure, hoping he wouldn't ruin the peaceful afternoon by actually catching a fish. She was lying in a lawn chair, engrossed in a romance novel.

I'm no expert,
Cromwell thought,
but that doesn't look like county-approved paving material.
He had spied a tuft of blue tarpaulin protruding from a makeshift low-water crossing that spanned the shallow, gravelly river.

“Hey, Vick. What do you make of that?”

“Hmmm?”

“See that blue stuff sticking out of the dam?”

Vicky didn't answer.
Swell,
thought Paul.
She's to the part where the muscular young hero embraces the heroine with rugged passion, yet sensitivity.
You could hit her with a crowbar and she wouldn't look up from the book.

Paul laid down his fishing pole and began walking down the shoreline.

Two years earlier, the Cromwells had purchased a small cabin on a ten-acre tract in a rural subdivision named Mucho Loco. The local real estate agent had assured them that most of the residents were weekenders only, as the Cromwells planned to be.

“City folks like yourself, just looking for a little peace and quiet,” he lied.

The Cromwells agreed with the agent—the countryside seemed quaint and serene, with small cabins barely visible behind cedar trees. They puttered along the dirt roads of the subdivision in the agent's Ford Explorer. Paul and Vicky spied an armadillo, a possum, and a family of raccoons in the late-afternoon light. By the time they reached the advertised property, they had spotted a dozen white-tailed deer bounding through the trees and were eager to spend their weekends in such a pastoral Shangri-la. As Paul signed the dotted line, the real estate agent smiled and thought:
Nothing like a few Bambis to close the deal.

The Cromwells soon discovered, however, that the populace of Mucho Loco consisted primarily of ex-bikers, white separatists, and trailer-park refugees. Weekends were anything but relaxing as frequent gunshots split the night. Stereos blared from neighboring cabins as teenagers threw wild parties. One spring afternoon, the Cromwells pulled on their swimsuits, slathered each other with Coppertone, and strolled down to the common area on the river. There they interrupted what appeared to be an orgy of Woodstock alumni. A dozen people lounged in the shallow water, all long-haired and nude. At least one couple was openly engaged in sex. Women with hairy armpits and free-swinging breasts cackled in merriment as Lynyrd Skynyrd played from a boombox. Empty cans of Lone Star littered the riverbank, and the smell of marijuana hung in the air like dirty gym socks. The Cromwells politely declined an invitation to join the festivities.

All of this was more than enough to motivate Paul and Vicky to put their cabin back on the market. (
For Sale by Owner
this time; Paul couldn't stand the thought of giving the deceptive real estate agent another commission.) But bad luck follows the lower middle class like a loyal hunting dog, and the Cromwells were unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle. Early that summer, torrential rains had annihilated a portion of the low-water bridge on the only road into Mucho Loco. Unless you had a rowboat and Schwarzenegger-sized arms, you were effectively stranded in or out of the subdivision. Most of the full-time residents were grateful for the crisis, which was, in essence, a reprieve from work.

As it happened, that summer continued to produce record rainfall, and the county postponed repairs to the bridge. The residents finally found some relief by way of a rancher who let them cut through his property on horses and four-wheelers. Nothing else could manage the rugged terrain. But for the Cromwells, the restricted access to Mucho Loco was a major setback. Nobody will want to buy the place now, Paul said, except maybe a swimmer with a death wish.

Finally, after the rains, the county roads department sprang into action. That is, they patched the missing segment of the bridge with a questionable mixture of cement, rock, and clay. Even an untrained eye such as Paul's could tell that the repair was no more than a Band-Aid, sure to wash out with the next big storm.
Better than nothing,
thought Paul.
We'd better sell this place while the selling is good.

Paul placed an ad in the
Austin American-Statesman
and the
San Antonio Express-News
the following week:

Rustic cabin on ten acres. Friendly neighbors. Seclusion courtesy of Mother Nature. 512-551-1649.

Paul considered it the best ad he had written all year.
But it better pay off soon,
Paul was thinking as he approached the dam. He walked out onto the low-water crossing with the cool water rushing past his ankles. The surface of the original dam was slick with algae in some places, but he picked his footing carefully. As he got closer to the repaired portion, he could see the small flap of blue tarp just inches underwater.

Paul walked out onto the rough new segment of the dam. He could see where the patchwork was already eroding from the current; that was the only reason the previously buried tarp was visible at all. He thought:
What the hell, my shoes are already soaked. Might as well check it out.

He leaned over the side of the dam, reached into the water and took hold of the tarp. The water was clear and cold. The tarp was rolled up like a carpet. Paul pulled the tarp back like one pulls up a shirtsleeve.

Meanwhile Vicky had finally realized that Paul had wandered off, and she was watching from fifty yards away. She saw Paul walk out onto the dam. She saw him lean over and reach into the water. She saw him jerk back and then scramble, slipping and sliding, back to the riverbank.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Paul yelled. “There's a fucking human hand in there!”

Tim Gray was in dire need of narcotics but the goddamn Pekingese on the exam table wouldn't hold still. Taking a stool sample was, without a doubt, the worst part of being a veterinarian—especially for a man with a squeamish stomach, like Tim Gray. Growing up, Gray had thought being a veterinarian meant delivering cuddly puppies and mending horses’ lame legs.
Yeah, right,
he thought.
Nobody told me I'd spend half the day mining for crap in dogs’ butts.
Unfortunately, Gray's occupation offered all types of intestinally challenging tasks, such as cleaning up cat piss and emptying canine anal glands. Though he still loved animals, Gray had come to hate caring for them.

As a fresh-faced graduate of Texas A&M a decade earlier, Gray had set up practice in Blanco, his hometown. His clientele had grown quickly. Dogs and cats, horses, cows, sheep, pigs and poultry—even llamas, emus, and ostriches—they all needed attention. Dealing with such a broad range of species also meant Dr. Gray handled a variety of animal medications. Over the years, Gray had developed a taste for some of the rather potent pharmaceuticals he dispensed to his furry and feathered patients.

His first experimentation had been with acepromazine, a tranquilizer commonly used for dogs frightened by thunderstorms or fireworks. He had packed a light lunch, a six-pack of Heineken, and three hundred milligrams of “Ace.” Then he went sailing on Lake Buchanan. Under an enormous blue sky, he ate a sandwich and washed the tranquilizers down with three beers. He had wonderful, vivid hallucinations for about thirty minutes, and then he passed out.

When he woke up thirty-six hours later, every inch of exposed skin was blistered by the unforgiving August sun. He was suffering from heart palpitations, double vision, and a severe case of dehydration. And he couldn't wait to explore other possibilities from his medicine cabinet.

Next he had tried phenylbutazone, a horse medication commonly used for arthritis. He swallowed a hundred-milligram tablet at six
P.M.
on a Saturday night. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a seedy motel room in Houston at three
P.M.
on Sunday. The TV blared a rerun of
M*A*S*H.
He was surrounded by empty beer cans. Two soiled condoms lay on the carpet. The lingering smell of cheap perfume assaulted his nostrils. He quickly pulled on his clothes and left. Later the next week, snippets of the evening came back to him. Something about being escorted out of a Wal-Mart because he was found nude lying in a canoe in the sporting-goods section. Vague recollections of ordering a dozen supertacos at a Jack-in-the-Box. One freeze-frame memory of riding down Loop 610 in a limousine with his head out the moonroof, singing an AC/DC tune. Other than that, he didn't have a clue.

After these “lost time” episodes, Gray was more prudent with his experiments, starting with a small amount and working up to a pleasant and “safe” dosage. He was hopelessly hooked, though he had yet to admit it to himself. Throughout the day, as he dealt with dogs, cats, snakes, and ferrets, his center of concentration remained on the illicit substances waiting in his office.

As he wrestled with the Pekingese on the exam table, he could feel the raw hunger for drugs beginning to eat at his belly.

“Agnes, give me a hand,” Gray hollered to his assistant in the adjoining room. She was bathing an Australian shepherd, a popular breed with local ranchers. “Flopsie is being a real bitch today.” Flopsie looked up at Gray and bared her tiny white teeth with a pitiful growl.

“You just have to give her a little loving,” Agnes said as she walked in. Flopsie immediately began wagging her tail. Agnes petted her shaggy head. “Hold still, sugar, and let nice Dr. Gray get a little sample.”

With Agnes distracting Flopsie, Gray quickly inserted the instrument and completed the task, while his mouth filled with pre-regurgitation saliva. Finally, all done.

While Agnes put Flopsie back in her kennel, Tim Gray slipped quietly into his office and closed the door. He sat at his desk and opened the bottom left-hand drawer. “Come to Papa,” Gray said as his heart began to race and beads of sweat broke on his forehead. As he fumbled with the small zippered bag that contained his stash, the phone rang. He could hear Agnes answering it outside.

“Dr. Gray, it's Roy Swank on the phone.”

“Tell him I'll call him right back.”

“He says it's urgent.”

“All right, all right.” Gray unscrewed the top of a small vial, dipped a tiny spoon into the snow-white powder and sucked it into his left nostril. He did the same with the right nostril. Then he grabbed the phone.

Two minutes later, Agnes watched as Tim Gray bolted from his office, ran outside to his Honda Accord, and squealed out of the parking lot.

Agnes turned to Flopsie in the small wire kennel: “Somebody's having a bad day.”

Flopsie wagged her tail in reply.

THREE YEARS AGO, one of the most despised and unethical men in Blanco County was voted in as sheriff. Herbert Mackey had won the election by the slimmest margin in county history—thirteen votes, to be exact.

Mackey's greasy supporters knew it would be a tough race, but they had anticipated a somewhat wider victory. After all, they had been bolstered by a late development that should have made Mackey a shoo-in. His opponent, Ed Calhoun, had committed suicide one week before the election.

Many county residents were appalled that Mackey had managed to secure a victory, since nobody seemed to know anybody who had actually voted for him. Not since Lyndon Johnson's run for the U.S. Senate in 1948 had so many rumors of ballot-stuffing buzzed through the sparsely populated county. Officials resisted calls for a recount.
Let's all be realistic,
they said.
What will we do if a dead man actually wins the race?

Prior to the election, Mackey ran a used-car lot in Blanco, where he had a penchant for selling to immigrant workers and people living below the poverty line. He had a knack for devising financing contracts that allowed him to accept personal property as collateral for late payments. A deer rifle here, a microwave oven there. Sometimes the odd satellite dish or lawn tractor. Coincidentally, Mackey also owned the only pawn shop in all of Blanco County. In effect, property was redistributed among many of Mackey's less-fortunate future constituents—and Mackey stood shamelessly in the middle profiting from it all.

Not surprisingly, Mackey developed a reputation as a shyster and a mercenary. This reputation followed him into the sheriff's office, where he was known to greedily extend his palm and close his eyes.

The high point of Mackey's larcenous career came in the spring of his second year as sheriff. The well-known television evangelist and alleged tax evader, the Reverend Tommy Clyde, was conducting a fifty-city Southern tour, themed “What We Owe the Lord”;
60 Minutes
ran a segment on the tour, calling the story “What We Owe the IRS.”

After drawing large crowds in towns like Amarillo and Abilene, Reverend Clyde headed south to save sinners in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. On the way, his caravan stopped overnight in Johnson City. His large tour bus, a restored Greyhound with a rendition of
The Last Supper
on the side, drew curious stares from bystanders all along Main Street. The bus came to a stop in front of the twenty-unit Phelps Motel, where Reverend Clyde's entourage had reserved every room for the evening.

Apparently the reverend liked to sample the Communion wine on occasion, and things got a little rowdy down at the Phelps place. After receiving a few complaints about the noise, Mackey drove over to the motel. He knocked on Reverend Clyde's door, which was answered by a RuPaul look-alike. Mackey scrambled back to his cruiser, grabbed a Polaroid camera, and burst into the motel room. He managed to fire off a dozen shots of the reverend and the prostitute before they barricaded themselves in the bathroom.

Three days later, an unidentified man delivered a briefcase containing fifty thousand dollars cash to the home of Herbert J. Mackey. Mackey reciprocated with a small envelope containing the twelve snapshots.
Praise the Lord.

Friday afternoon, Sheriff Mackey pulled on his brown Stetson, loaded himself into his cruiser, and drove out to see John Marlin.

Marlin heard Mackey pull into the driveway and stepped out to meet him. They exchanged a stiff handshake. Around each other, they had always been about as comfortable as two tomcats sharing the same alley.

“’Morning, John,” Mackey said, with an uncharacteristic grin.

Marlin did not return the smile. “What brings you out here, Herb?”

“I really think we need to talk about that deer you hauled off the other night. I got a call from Roy Swank and he was asking for that deer back.”

“Now, Herb, we've been through all of this before. You know as well as I do that native whitetails belong to the state of Texas. Swank doesn't own that deer any more than he owns the sky.”

“Sure, I know that. But let's think this through. Roy Swank has done a lot for Blanco County. He donated all that money to rebuild the courthouse. He gave us that two hundred acres for a county park. Not to mention all the things he's done for the Parks and Wildlife Department. The man paid for that new truck you're driving, Marlin. You ever stop to think of that?”

Marlin noticed that Mackey didn't mention the contributions Swank had made to the Sheriff's Department over the years—funds to buy new cruisers, Kevlar vests, and dash-mounted video cameras. Rumor had it that Swank had also bankrolled Mackey's election campaign for the sheriff's office, making Mackey one of Swank's biggest fans.

Marlin said, “I don't really want to sit here and argue Roy Swank's finer points with you. It's no use anyway.”

Mackey smiled again. “Well, sure it is. I know we can work something out. After all, it's just one deer.”

“Yeah, but that one deer is gone.”

“What? When? Who has it?”

“I had him penned up in my yard, and this morning he was gone.”

Mackey's face tensed. “Goddamn it to hell. That's just great.”

“I thought his injury would keep him from jumping, but I was wrong. Tell you what, I'll call Swank and let him know,” Marlin said.
And then I'll call Phil,
he thought,
and tell him to keep Buck out of sight.

“That sounds like a real problem,” Tim Gray said.

“You're damn right it's a problem, and thanks ever so much for your concern,” replied Roy Swank, sitting behind his desk. “But what I need to know from you is how big a problem it is.”

Gray wrung his hands. “You know, it could just be the effects of the rut.”

Gray was referring to the yearly breeding season for white-tailed deer, when the doe is in estrus. It is then that the bucks are most active and the most combative with each other, trying to win the favor of receptive females.

Swank smiled a menacing grin. “Gray, are you a hunter?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up. It ain't like any rut I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty. So what say we begin to deal in reality?”

Gray was fumbling in his mind for a reply, but his verbal skills were hampered by the drugs coursing through his veins. Finally: “All I can do is make an educated guess, and my guess is that it won't die. It will exhibit some rather unusual behavior for a while, then it will be okay.”

Swank didn't look convinced.

“Deer are very hardy animals, you know,” Gray continued, trying to sound confident. “No sir, my guess is it will be just fine.”

“It better be.” Swank took a long drag on his cigar. “Because if it dies, guess who gets to go looking for the carcass?”

As John Marlin drove to San Antonio on Saturday to see Trey Sweeney, the biologist, in the hospital, he laughed to himself. Buck wasn't any more inclined to jump a fence than Herbert Mackey himself was. After all, Buck was thoroughly domesticated. Phil Colby had raised Buck from a fawn, after finding him bedded beside a dead doe on his ranch five years ago.

Back then, Trey had advised Colby as to the proper methods of feeding and caring for the fragile fawn, scarcely a few weeks old. Colby had risen at all hours of the night to bottle-feed Buck with a colostrum-replacement formula to help build the fawn's immune system. Colby kept the deer tucked away in the barn at night, away from the cold and safe from foxes, coyotes, dogs, and other predators. He even immunized Buck against common deer ailments.

When he was two weeks old, the deer was ready for solid food. Colby would put Buck on a leash and walk him down to the Pedernales River, where forage and browse were plentiful.

As the deer grew strong and healthy, the bond between Colby and Buck flourished. Buck was more like a dog than a deer, following Colby around as he completed his chores. Buck even slept inside on occasion, and seemed to prefer it.

It always pained Colby to think of releasing Buck back onto the ranch, but Marlin assured him it was the right thing to do. Finally, the day after deer season ended, Colby and Marlin drove out to the north pasture with Buck in the back of Marlin's truck.

“You made your first mistake when you named him, you know that,” Marlin said to his unusually quiet friend.

Colby nodded.

“He'll be all right. Doubt he'll ever even leave the ranch. And you've run all the coyotes out of here.”

Colby stared out the window.

Finally Marlin reached the location they had agreed on—a grove of towering sycamore and cypress trees near a flat, wide creek that fed into the river. Their favorite campsite when they were boys. Both men considered it the most beautiful place on the ranch.

Marlin stayed in the cab while Colby coaxed Buck out of the bed of the pickup. He watched sadly as his best friend helped the deer down to the ground and then walked him into the trees. Marlin thought:
Don't know why I'm getting choked up, it's only a deer.
But he had to compose himself before Colby returned.

Afterward, the men drove wordlessly back toward the ranch house. Marlin headed up a hill and past the high bluff overlooking the creek. He eased his way through some cattle who had heard the truck and thought it was feeding time, then he bounced along a rutted stretch of dirt road ravaged by recent rains. Finally they navigated around an oak grove and the house came into view.

There in the yard was Buck, waiting for Colby.

The men laughed and shook their heads. For four years after that, Buck rarely strayed more than a quarter-mile from the house.

These were sweet memories for Marlin, but they brought back some ugly ones as well. When Colby lost the ranch—after Roy Swank had bought it from the county—Colby had stayed on as Swank's ranch foreman. But one day last spring, when Colby found himself a new place out in the country—a nice rock home on twenty acres—he tried to take Buck home with him. As he began to load Buck into his truck, Swank pulled up alongside and protested, saying that he owned the deer.

“When I bought the place, that gave me all rights to the animals as well,” Swank said.

“Come on, Roy. It's just one deer. And it's
my
deer.”

“I can see why you want him. He's a great trophy,” Swank said, hinting at his future plans.

“I'm afraid they don't enter any live deer in the record books.”

Swank just nodded and let a pause say it all. Finally he said, “I know that.”

In an instant Colby realized that Swank was planning on letting Buck be slaughtered by paying hunters. But this would be no hunt; it would be like shooting a dog on your front porch.

Ever since Swank had taken ownership of the ranch, Colby had been struggling with a fierce resentment. He had come to despise not just Swank's affluence, but his smug attitude and cold demeanor. Now his brain went into vapor-lock as his anger boiled over. He grabbed a tire iron out of his truck bed and began slamming creases into the hood of Swank's new Chevy Suburban. Swank fumbled for the ignition. Next, Colby shattered the windshield. Swank locked the doors. Colby was kicking serious dents into the passenger side when Swank finally got the vehicle started and roared away.

Colby had taken the deer home that day, but later he came out the loser. A judge informed both men that native wildlife is, from a legal standpoint, property of the state. In short, Colby had broken the law by transporting wildlife without a permit. He was fined one hundred dollars and ordered to return the deer to the Circle S Ranch. If he refused, he would be jailed for contempt of court and Marlin, as game warden, would have to return the deer for him. Colby didn't want to put his best friend in that position, so he had returned the deer himself. And he and Marlin had been dreading the opening of this year's deer season ever since. Until two days ago.

Deer season is one week away now,
Marlin thought as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Ol’ Buck wouldn't have lived through opening weekend.