Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(80)

"Who’s got the keys to the ranch?" I asked.

Garrett swore. "I do, you know that."

I waited.

"No way," my brother said. “You’re a total fruitcake."

"Runs in the family."

He was silent. "Probably. I can pick you up in a couple of hours."

50

The Carmen Miranda took the long way, down Highway 90, Old Sabinal Road. By the time we got there I was half-stoned just from sitting next to Garrett. I’d heard Changes in Latitudes on CD-ROM continuous replay cranked and remixed through Garrett’s computer in the back until I knew all the lyrics sideways. I’d had enough Pecan Street Ale to make my throbbing tequila hangover from the night before fade to a dull ache. There wasn’t much that could bother me at that point. Nevertheless, it was hard to look at what the march of civilization had done to Sabinal.

“Oh, Jesus," I said. "There’s a traffic light."

"Yeah," said Garrett. “They changed it from flashing yellow about six years ago."

I sat up a little straighter in my seat. “What the hell happened to Ogden’s?"

As a kid I’d loved and feared the place. Every time we stopped at Ogden’s for lunch on the way into town I used to get scolded for trying to sit at the forbidden Old-Timers’ Table in the back. Once I’d had my ears pulled good; from that time on I just watched from the counter while the old men diced to see who would pay for the morning coffee. My father would order the world’s greatest chicken fried steak sandwiches to go from a waitress named Meryl.

Now the diner was closed. The Hill Country mural that was painted on the glass in front was faded and chipped. The lights were off.

"Man, you are out of touch," Garrett said. "They changed the name to the Pepper Patch years ago. Then they went seasonal. No business out this way. They just open up for the hunters, now."

"How the hell do you know all this? You turning kicker on me?"

Garrett seemed to like that idea. "Sometimes I need a place to get away. It doesn’t get any more ‘away’ than Sabinal, little bro."

We passed the Schutes’ land, then a few smaller spreads of mesquites, olive-colored hills, cows. A few old ranchers leaning against their fence posts turned to watch the mound of plastic tropical fruit drive past. One of them raised his roll of spare barbed wire in a salute. Garrett honked.

The old Wagon Wheel across from the entrance to Navarre land had always been our landmark for finding which gate was ours. Now the restaurant was boarded-up. Our cattleguard hadn’t been hosed out in so long it was filled three feet deep with dirt. Our cattle were walking back and forth over the bars, grazing the side of the highway at will. One of them, a Charolais mix, was right in the gateway, staring down the Carmen Miranda.

"How about honking at it?" I said.

“No way," Garrett told me. “They’re tame, man. You honk your horn, they come running to be fed. You ever seen a safari bus crowded by thirty-three hungry Charolais? Ain’t pretty. "

“Hpw about a red cape then?" I suggested.

Garrett just leaned out the window and had a heated discussion with the heifer. I guess it was paying attention because it finally moved out of the way. Then we drove through, trying to find the driveway under the prairie grass.

The ranch house itself hadn’t changed much since the 1880s, when it had been the homestead for the Nunley family, one of the founders of Sabinal. just three rooms with limestone walls and hardwood floors, rough-cut beams holding up the ceiling, more or less. My grandfather had grudgingly agreed to get electricity and a septic tank when he bought the land after the original Nunley spread had been divided back in the 1940s, but neither the plumbing nor the wiring had been touched since then. These days the septic tank was called Old 90 because you could only flush the toilet or take a shower once every hour and a half without everything overflowing.

I was a little surprised to find Harold Diliberto standing on the porch waiting for us.

“He still takes care of things out here?" I asked.

“Yeah," said Garrett.

Harold had taken the job when he was still married to my sister Shelley. He’d been abusive, drunk most of the time, and not very energetic, but he’d been family, he knew about cattle, and he’d been cheap to hire. I’m not sure which was the biggest selling point for my father. That had been ten years and two of Shelley’s husbands ago.

I looked at the house, the cattleguard, the lawn that had turned back to prairie grass.

“Doing a great job," I said.

Garrett shrugged. “He’s okay when his friends don’t get him drinking."

“What friends?"

“Me, usually."

Harold looked like he and the cows had been partying pretty hard the night before. His shirt was buttoned wrong so his collar stuck up on the right side. His jeans were half-tucked into his boots. At one point his third-grade teacher had probably told him: "You make that face at me and one day it’ll stick that way." She’d been right. Harold always looked like he was trying his best to look ugly.

He nodded at me like he’d just seen me last week.

“Tres. Garrett."

Garrett took the stairs on his hands, then pulled his chair up after him. The chair probably weighed fifty pounds. Garrett used one arm without straining.