1
SEX ON A RANCH IS OFTEN TAKEN FOR granted. At any given point something is usually screwing something else. So I really don't have to look farther than my yard to find my dogs in a rousing game of Hump Dog. If Petunia, the potbellied pig is involved, it becomes a bit kinkier.
In the pond in the summer, Colorado River toads make love, leaving long threads of eggs attached to one another looking like strings of black pearls, while mallard drakes dart lustfully after fast-swimming hens. What happens underwater is anybody's guess.
At night the roar of mating cats--both domestic, and if we get really lucky, the mountain lions up in the hills--can be heard. Out in the pastures of the Vaca Grande Ranch, the bulls kick up dust and challenge one another over girlfriends. In the desert, the rattlesnakes make love for hours on end with one of their two penises. Seems like an excess to me, but it's sort of a spare tire thing, I guess.
Not long ago, when Cori Elena, my foreman Mart'n's squeeze was here, there was actually some people sex going on too. But then that got out of hand when she had a fling with the brand inspector and ended up moving off the ranch and in with him.
So not too many people are fooling around at the Vaca Grande these days. Hell, I haven't had a date for months. Neither has Mart'n. His daughter, Quinta, broke up with a guy a few weeks ago, and if Mart'n's dad, Juan, at eighty-one is getting any, he's wisely keeping his mouth shut. Guess he probably doesn't want to turn us green with envy.
But sex was on my mind tonight. I guess because of my cousin Bea.
Bea's a news anchor for Channel 4 TV and she has no problem, no problem at all in the Sex Department. She's always got some guy hanging around, his tongue dragging on the floor, happy to be in her shadow if she'll just give him the time of day.
Unfortunately Bea's pretty quiet about the intricacies of these affairs, so even my vicarious sex life is shot to hell. Still, when I'm at her townhouse I get a kick out of opening up her freezer and checking the number of glass vials stored there. In each is a single piece of paper, frozen in water with the name of a past enamorata in it. Gone, but not forgotten.
Bea's gorgeous face was now filling my television screen during the ten o'clock news. Some people say we look alike with our dark eyes and hair and somewhat exotic looks--courtesy of our half-Apache mother--but Bea's a lot more glamorous than I could ever hope to be. If she's Cosmo, I'm Field & Stream.
I'm not a television lover, but I turned the volume up on the set. At least a couple of times a week I try to catch Bea's evening newscasts.
Sitting next to my cousin was Terez Montiel, one of the weekend anchors who was filling in for Michael Boyd. Bea had just handed the broadcast over to Montiel, who was talking.
"And in an interesting development in the Cordelia Jones murder investigation today, detectives indicate that the young woman may have been involved in some sort of sex cult here in Tucson."
Mrs. Fierce, my cockaschnauz, whined at my feet and licked my hand.
"I know." I reached down and petted her. "A sex cult. Some girls have all the luck."
The dog put her head back down on the Saltillo tile floor and farted.
I turned up the volume and muttered, "The cops always get the good ones." I'm a private eye, but I've never had anything as titillating as a sex case.
"Early Tuesday morning, Cordelia Jones's body was found in a west-side neighborhood. What appeared to be a random act of violence may now have its roots in the occult." Terez's face was replaced by a photograph of Cordelia Jones, a tall, pale, plain-Jane brunette in a long flowing black robe with some kind of purple triangle thing on it. She did look a little spooky.
"Channel 4 News has learned that Jones may have been a high priestess in a worldwide secret cult, known as the OTO, or Ordo Templi Orientis."
A video clip quickly replaced Cordelia's photograph. A tall man with silver hair took over. "This is a ritual magick group primarily, instead of a worship group, as in Wicca."
The font superimposed on the video identified the speaker as Dr. Thomas Burkett of the University of Arizona.
"Ritual magick entails invoking certain words or incantations," he continued, "and perhaps holding your body in certain ways in order to produce a change through magick."
I raised my hands over my head and shook them, closed my eyes and sang, "Woo, wooooooo."
Nothing happened. When I opened them I found that a chunky Hispanic detective named Hernandez had pushed the professor offstage. He was standing outside the house where I presumed Jones had been killed.
"Miss Jones's involvement in the occult is definitely part of the police investigation at this time," he said.
And that was the end of sex in my house for the evening.
I waited up for the weather. Mid-nineties was the forecast for the week, not unusual for the middle of September. Then I toddled off to bed with Mrs. Fierce and Blue, my Australian cattle dog, in my wake.
I WAS CLEANING OUT the tack room the next morning when Quinta came in with a glass of prickly pear iced tea for me.
"What are you doing up?" I asked.
"The bar wasn't busy last night so I got to come home early."
"So you're into takeout now?" I asked, taking a slug of the tea.
Her response was to look out the door. Then she leaned in close. "I heard a pretty good rumor."
"I'm all ears." I grabbed a paper towel and wiped off the sweat that was threatening my eyes.
"Hildy Peters was in the Riata last night."
Hildy was a cowboy who rode for the B Spear Ranch north of here.
"You know he's good friends with tata Alberto?"
I nodded and swirled the ice cubes around in the magenta-colored liquid. Alberto was Quinta's maternal grandfather who lived on the Double A Drag up near Oracle.
She sighed heavily. "He says my mother's getting married."
"Shit."
The shit was not meant because of the news. I'd never been overly fond of Quinta's mother, Cori Elena. Ever since she'd shown up a year or so earlier, she'd really been nothing but trouble. Having her married and permanently off the Vaca Grande was probably good news. No, great news.
The shit was for Mart'n.
"What do you think Dad will do?" Quinta asked.
"I don't know, but it's not like she's living with him or anything."
"She is such a bitch."
Since I'd known her, Quinta had never been overly fond of her mother. They had a lot of rocky road behind them.
"Gee, maybe I'll get to be a flower girl," I said.
She attempted a smile.
"I'm assuming the lucky groom is Jake Hatcher?"
This time the smile was full blown. "AQua suerte, no?"
Cori Elena had had a rather remarkable fling with our local brand inspector while living with Mart'n. She'd been living with him for a while now, so the news was not entirely unexpected.
"Will you tell him?"
I handed her back the empty glass. "Yeah, I guess someone better."
As I watched my foreman's daughter walk across the dusty corral, I found that I couldn't hate her mother. After all, without Cori Elena, there would have been no Quinta.
2
AFTER LUNCH I JUMPED INTO PRISCILLA, my three-quarter-ton Dodge pickup and headed to my office, which is located in an old stage stop about a mile from the ranch house.
I had settled in, returned my phone calls, and was working on my billing when my cousin Bea called.
"If it isn't the Doctor Ruth of Channel 4," I said.
"Very funny."
"Hey, I'm jealous. Why do you get all the good ones?"
"Because I have good people working with me."
"So what's the deal with the sex cult?"
"Don't know yet. Terez Montiel has been working on it. All I have to do is look cool on camera."
I knew that was only partly true. In spite of having several reporters to pursue contacts and leads, Bea did a lot of her own scut work.
"Well if you can string it out, you'll keep up your ratings."
"Trade, suck it up, your cynicism is showing."
"What happened to, 'If it bleeds, it leads'?"
She laughed. "How about an early dinner tomorrow? Say, El Mezon del Cobre at six?"
"Shall I bring your pig?" I asked in an ongoing joke. Bea's potbellied pig, Petunia, was living at the ranch.
"I wasn't really thinking barbecue," she said before hanging up.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON I spotted Mart'n at the barn loading salt blocks into his old truck. I wasted no time in getting out to the barn.
"Dropping salt?"
"Seguro. The cows are going through a lot of it."
They always did in the hot weather. I helped him finish loading the fifty-pound blocks and then jumped in the passenger side of the truck.
He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as we drove out.
WE'D DROPPED SALT at two water tanks and were almost to the third when Mart'n's cell phone rang.
"ABueno?"
I glanced over and saw that he was smiling with the phone clamped tightly against his ear. Whoever was on the other end of the phone must have been doing all the talking, for he was silent as we bounced and lurched over the rutted dirt road. Maybe it was a new girlfriend. That would sure soften the blow I was about to deal him.
We'd gone to two tanks and were headed to the third when I finally brought up the dreaded subject.
"Have you seen Cori Elena lately?"
"She never writes, she never calls,"...
