Sample Chapter–Quarantine

Quarantine
A Mystery / Thriller by Gerald McCathern Chapter 1
The body was lying face down in the middle of the dry playa lake bed, hidden by the knee-high cochia weeds which covered the playa’s floor. The black dog, however, had found it and was barking to tell the two boys that he had found something which they should investigate.
This small playa lake was not unlike the thousands of playas which dotted the flat High Plains of Texas, holding water when it rained, but since it seldom rained, they were usually dry and covered with tall weeds and grass and were a favorite habitat for rabbits, raccoons, skunks, possums and pheasants.
The boys, ages ten and eleven, were rabbit hunting with their new .22 caliber rifles which had been Christmas gifts only two months before, and had followed a large jackrabbit into the lake’s weed covered floor. They heard the dogs frantic barking and rushed through the weeds towards the sound.
“Old Max got him a skunk cornered!” Cody, the ten year old, shouted as they pushed through the weeds a couple of hundred yards away from the sound.
They knew it was no rabbit because a rabbit would not set in one place and allow Max to pester it with his barking. This must be something mean enough to keep the dog at bay.
“Ain’t no skunk bark,” Joey, the eleven year old responded as he pushed an exceptionally tall cochia aside. “Betcha he’s got hisself a rattler cornered this time — leastwise I hope so. I sure ain’t wanting to smell no skunk on his hide for the next two weeks. You know how Mom is when old Max comes in smelling like a skunk. She’ll make us take him down to the windmill and wash him with lye soap.”
“Might be a coon,” Cody replied, ” ‘member we seen them coon tracks up by the water trough. Betcha it’s a coon!”
As the boys approached closer, the breeze, blowing from the direction of the dog, became permeated with an odor which was unpleasant to their smell, but was not the sharp, pungent odor of an upset skunk. It was something neither of them had ever smelled before. They could see the tip of the dogs tail as he darted around and around the varmint but were unable to see exactly what he had cornered because of the height and thickness of the lake-bottom weeds.
As they approached cautiously, with their rifles held in both hands, ready to fire if the varmint attacked, Joey said softly, “You watch yourself, Cody, if that’s a big old rattler we sure don’t want to get too close, ‘member what Dad said about staying away from rattlesnakes!”
“Ain’t no rattlesnake, Joey. Rattlesnakes don’t stink like that,” Cody replied.
The boys had found several rattlesnakes while exploring the boundaries of their father’s farm. The south forty of the farm was the location of a large prairie dog town and the burrows, which were the homes of the prairie dogs, were a prime nesting ground for the rattlesnakes. Wes Tinsley, their father, had cautioned them to stay well away from that area of the farm while on their hunting forays.
They were now within twenty feet of the varmint, and the dog, seeing them approaching, increased his barking as if to say, “I’ve got him cornered, boys, but be careful, he’s dangerous!”
Joey, being the taller of the two, was first to see through the weeds that it wasn’t a skunk and it wasn’t a rattler. Whatever it was had on blue jeans and cowboy boots!
“Lordy, Cody,” he shouted, “It’s a man and looks to me like he’s deader’n a door nail!”
Although he didn’t know how dead a door nail might be, Joey had heard the phrase used by his dad in describing the condition of one of their bulls which had gotten into the grain bin, over-ate and died.
Cody, still unable to see the body and not hankering to see a stinking dead man, began backing away from the spot where the dog was indicating danger lay. Sometimes, when he became excited or scared, he was prone to stutter. “L-l-let’s get out’ta here, Joey!”, he stammered. “W-w-we ain’t got no b- b-business messing around with no d-d-dead man.”
But Joey, being the older of the two and not wanting to appear cowardly to his younger brother, cautiously moved forward a couple more steps where he could see the entire form of the corpse stretched out face down, with his hands taped together behind his back, his ankles taped tightly together, and two bullet holes showing plainly in the back of his head!
The dog, seeing that he was now backed up by his two young masters, calmed down and slowly crept up to the dead man, cautiously smelling the bloated body.
Cody, not anxious to look at a dead man but scared to move too far away from his older brother, slipped silently up to Joey’s side and took hold of his belt for protection as he peered through the weeds at their discovery.
“G-g-gawd d-d-dang!”, he stammered, forgetting that his mother would wash his mouth out with soap if she ever heard him using profanity.
The two boys slowly circled the body, with Cody squeezing tighter to Joey’s belt. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go tell Dad,” Joey said, also forgetting the soap threat.
This was farm and ranch country where a boy learned to be a man by watching and listening to those who had already reached manhood. The small ears of the two boys had soaked up most of the fine prose and curse words attributed to manhood by listening to their father and his friends discuss cattle, farming and the world’s political situation. They had also learned other fine arts of growing up in this High Plains country of Texas such as riding, roping and dipping snuff. Their mom, Clariss, a gracious church-going and God-fearing woman, was continually trying to break them of these manly habits.
Turning their backs to the corpse, they began running through the weeds towards their house a half- mile to the east and now that they could no longer see the dead man, their imaginations ran amuck! He probably had gotten up from the ground, some way untied his arms and legs and was breathing down their collars, trying to stop them from reporting their find. They were not about to stop their retreat and turn their rifles onto the pursuing dead man. Everybody knew that bullets did no good against ghosts and dead men. The best thing for them to do was to reach the protection of their father as soon as possible.
They ran faster and faster, and both began to scream at the top of their lungs, afraid of the sight they might see if they looked back. The two new rifles were a hindrance to their speed, and were discarded on the hillside as they streaked towards the safety of their home. The black dog ran at their heels with his hair bristling in fear, wanting no part of his discovery now that the boys were not backing him up.
Their father was in the corral putting out hay for the cattle when he heard their screams. He dropped the hay fork, vaulted the fence and ran towards the two frightened boys, knowing by their actions that they surely must both be bitten by rattlesnakes. Hadn’t he warned them over and over about watching where they walked when rabbit hunting?
Seeing their dad running towards them, they screamed all the louder. Tears were rolling down their cheeks and they were totally winded when they fell into the protection of his arms, unable to say a word.
Wes, of course, was trying to see where they had been bitten, pulling up their jean’s legs and searching for the tell-tale marks of the rattler’s fangs. “Where’d he bite you?” he screamed as he held Joey at arm’s length and looked into his frightened eyes.
Through his sobs, Joey finally blurted, “Weren’t no snake, Dad. It’s a dead man!” “A dead man! What you mean a dead man, boy?” “W-w-we found a d-d-dead man, Dad,” Cody stammered. Then both boys began to talk a mile a
minute. “There’s a dead man down in the middle of the lake. Old Max found him and he’s all tied up and
been shot right in the back of his head,” they cried. Had it not been for their tears, Wes would have thought it was just another one of their wild stories
that they were prone to fabricate. They had seen something, he was certain, and asked, “What makes you think it was a dead man?”
“Cause we got real close to him, Dad. He’s all swelled up and stinks and we could see two holes in the back of his head,” Cody said.
“That’s right, Dad,” Joey agreed, then added, “Deader’n a door nail!”
“Get in the pickup and show me,” Wes instructed as he headed for the truck which was parked next to the barn.
Wes stopped the truck on the hillside and retrieved the two rifles that the boys had discarded, then followed their direction through the weeds to the middle of the dry lake bottom. However, he was unable to find the body until the dog pointed it out by once again barking frantically next to the body.
Wes could not believe his eyes when he stopped the truck twenty feet from the body. As he stepped out of the truck, he instructed the boys to stay inside as he walked slowly towards the barking dog. It was as the boys had described, the man was lying face down with his feet and hands tightly bound with duct tape and with two neat holes in the back of his head.
Wes walked slowly around the body, being careful where he stepped so as not to disturb any evidence that might be lying on the ground since it was very evident that the man had been murdered. Not only was it evident that he had been murdered, it was evident that he had been murdered elsewhere and dumped in the weeds of the lake bed because there was no blood at the scene. Wes wanted to turn him over and look in his face because there was something vaguely familiar about the body, someone he felt he should know but couldn’t identify from the back. He decided it best not to disturb the body, however, before notifying the authorities.
Probably not much left of his face, anyway, he mused, as he thought about the damage caused by the two exiting bullets.
He returned to the pickup truck and dialed 911 on his cellular phone. A female voice came crisply through the receiver, “This is 911 emergency, how can I help you?”
“Give me Sheriff Blackwell,” Wes replied, “this is Wes Tinsley and there’s been a murder.”
The female voice responded, “I am paging the sheriff, Mr. Tinsley, please give me the information. Who has been murdered and where?”
“I don’t know who, ma’am, but it’s a man all tied up and shot and he’s laying in weeds in a dry playa lake bed about a half-mile west of my house.”
“Just give me directions from town, Mr. Tinsley, we may have a deputy in your area.”
“It’s eight miles north on 385 and two miles east. My house is on the south side of the road and you’ll see my pickup parked in the lake bed just a half-mile west of my barn.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tinsley, there will be an officer there shortly.”
Wes Tinsley, thirty-five year old farmer, had lived in Deaf Smith County, Texas all of his life and could not remember ever hearing about a murder in the county before. Seeing the murdered man in the middle of his farm was hard to believe, but there he was, bound and tied and dead as a door nail as Joey had so aptly described him.
This was not a country where people went around murdering other people. Deaf Smith County was basically a peaceful, law-abiding county in the Texas Panhandle. It certainly had it’s share of petty robberies, stealing, small time drug peddlers and assaults–but not murders. It was still old-west cow country, with over four hundred thousand head of cattle filling the numerous cattle feed yards, and a few thousand cowboys who worked in the feed yards, tending the cattle. Cowboys didn’t run away from a good, old-fashioned rough and tumble brawl but they knew when to stop before something like this took place.
Old Erasmus “Deaf” Smith, the county’s namesake, had been a Texas Revolutionary War hero who was deaf and had fought beside General Sam Houston in 1836. Speaking fluent Spanish, and able to read lips, Smith would slip close to Mexican lines, train his binoculars on the Mexican officers who were discussing attack plans, read their lips and carry their plans back to General Houston, information which was invaluable in helping Houston defeat the Mexican army.
Texans liked to name their towns and counties after their revolutionary war heroes.
It had always been cow country but with developing technology and irrigation it now boasted about eight hundred farmers who had plowed up much of the prairie grass and were growing the corn and feed grains used by the feed yards to feed the four hundred thousand head of confined cattle.
Hereford, the only town in the county, had received its name from the Hereford breed of cattle which were brought in from England before the turn of the century to cross-breed to the native longhorns. It was also the county seat, and boasted a population of about fifteen thousand people. Main street was only four blocks long, and like most of the small towns across rural America, many of the main street businesses had closed down because of the past twenty years of a failing agriculture economy.
Sheriff Pete Blackwell had been the county’s chief law enforcement officer for over fifteen years and knew almost all of the fifteen thousand by their first names. His constituents loved him, knowing him to be fair and conscientious but firm in upholding the duties of his office. The criminals had less favorable opinions of him but respected his authority. His staff consisted of four deputies, two jailers, two radio dispatchers and one secretary.
For the past fifteen years, the job of upholding the law in Deaf Smith County had been relatively easy, with the small county jail housing mostly drunks, petty thieves, small time drug dealers and illegal Mexican wet backs, so dubbed because they had to swim the Rio Grande River to slip into Texas illegally. However, the discovery of the murdered man in the dry playa lake bed by Wes Tinsley’s two boys would turn this peaceful community upside down and Pete and his boys were going to start earning
their law enforcement money!