With a satisfied sigh, Brice McAllister finished the last of his take-out burger and leaned back in the Adirondack chair on the deck of his brother Grant’s newly refurbished cabin, sipping a soda water and admiring the view across the Balcones hills and down to the narrow valley through which the creek ran.
“Got to admit, Great Grandad chose a prime site to build his cabin,” he said to his brother Duncan, who dropped his lean frame into a chair beside him. “Can see practically to three counties from here.”
“Course, when he built it, there were still Comanche raids in the area as well as marauding outlaw bands,” Duncan said. “He needed to be able to see to three counties to protect his family.”
“I’m just glad Grant decided to redo the place. It’s a showpiece.”
“Credit my lovely wife,” Grant said, coming out to join them. “The grunt labor of ripping out floors and walls, drywall, painting and finishing was mine, but the touches that make it so special are all her.”
“She’s a terrific designer,” Duncan said. “The place is modern and comfortable, but it’s still a cabin. Nothing frou-frou or cutesy, despite being furnished by a girl.”
“Speaking of wives, did you married guys get a special dispensation from your better halves to allow you meet for lunch here today? I mean, now that you can’t come and go when you please,” Brice said, adding a “bauk-bauk-bauk” chicken sound imitation.
“He’s inferring we’re hen-pecked,” Duncan said to Grant.
“Nah, he’s just jealous. Because we go home to two beautiful, hot, talented babes at night and he just has an empty condo in Austin,” Grant replied. “So sad. Not even a dog to keep him company.”
“Well, he’s the youngest. He always was a little slow,” Duncan said, grinning.
“If I weren’t so comfortable in this chair, I’d get up and whup you,” Brice said.
“You could try, but I wouldn’t advise it,” Grant said.
“Hmm… Recon Marine or Texas Ranger…which one would I put my money on?” Duncan mused.
“Enough brotherly mutual admiration,” Brice said dryly. “I’ve just finished up a case and am cooling my heels, waiting to be summoned to testify at the trial, so I thought I’d rummage around and see if I can turn up anything on those harassment incidents you’ve told me about.”
“I’d bet you anything Marshall Thomason is behind them,” Duncan said.
“Just because the two of you have detested each other since high school isn’t enough reason to put him under surveillance,” Brice said.
“Maybe not, but something isn’t right there,” Duncan said. “Is it only coincidence that Harrison started having all sorts of problems—fence lines cut, brush damning up creeks—after she inherited the Triple A? With Thomason approaching her in his slick rich-boy way, commiserating on how hard it was for a city girl with no experience to try to carry on her Daddy’s ranch, and how he’d be happy to take it off her hands for a good price if she decided to go back to her accountant’s job in Dallas?”
“And there have been more incidents since you two got hitched and reunited the two parts of the Triple A,” Grant said. “Worst of which was losing Halsey.”
Duncan shook his head. “Her father’s prize herd bull, who was almost like a pet. She still hasn’t gotten over the shock of finding him dead on the road after a gate was “somehow” left open. Brice, you know none of us would leave a gate open, ever, especially not one near a road with blind curves and 18-wheeler traffic. We’re just lucky the truck driver wasn’t killed too.”
“If it weren’t for Grant’s wife’s great ideas about using the Scott Ranch house as a conference center, bringing in some additional income, we would be in a pretty difficult situation, losing Halsey’s stud fees. We were counting on them for a lot of our operating cash over the next several years,” Duncan said.
“Thomason’s been nosing around all the ranchers, trying to get ones teetering on the brink of solvency to sell out,” Grant added.
“Maybe so,” Brice allowed. “That still doesn’t provide proof that he’s guilty of anything except wanting to build condos on every piece of land in the Hill Country that boasts a fine view.”
A chorus of disgusted groans met that observation. “So far only some of the low-landers have sold out. Good ranch land, but not the vistas like this one that would inspire the moneybag lawyers and doctors from Austin and San Antonio to buy the property for their weekend getaway houses,” Grant said.
“True,” Brice said. “So why would he want that land? It’s not like he can build some big housing development out in the middle of nowhere. The roads from Whiskey River aren’t wide enough and the speed limits are too low for people to want to live here and commute into San Antonio or Austin.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him to do it out of sheer meanness,” Duncan said. “And the satisfaction of thinking he can get away with it.”
“Maybe,” Brice said. “But I’m thinking something about land must be the key, if he is behind it. I thought I’d stop by the Whiskey River library later and look at the maps and property records. They have copies of some of the deed books from the county records office in Johnson City.”
“Go for it, little brother,” Grant said. “I should finish stringing the rest of the electric wire on the road-side boundary fences this week, so at least we’ll know immediately if we have any more breaks. I’ve been thinking about installing some security cameras pointed at the gates, too. Although someone bent on mischief could just cut the fences; they wouldn’t need to open a gate.”
“It might be worth it. Sometimes just having the bad guys know you’ve added surveillance is enough to convince them to attack someone else,” Brice said.
Finishing up his water, Grant said, “Speaking of fencing, I’d better get back to work. Unlike you law enforcement wusses, who can lounge around waiting on court dates, we ranchers have to work every day.”
“Why do you think he went into law enforcement?” Duncan said, grinning.
Brice gave him a narrow look. “Maybe I need to whup you instead of Grant. Yeah, we’re wusses alright. Only have to get up before dawn and stay out all hours on a stake out, tracking the bad guys through pouring rain or in the icy darkness, and getting shot at by hostage-taking crazies.”
Duncan and Grant sobered, exchanging looks. “We were sorry to hear about Tad. Seriously, we appreciate what you do, protecting us. And the dangers you face. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”
“Always. Sorry to be touchy. It’s only been a week since the funeral, though.”
He’d lost one of his best friends from police academy days ten days ago—shot in the face while doing a routine traffic stop for a burned-out tail light. But the driver had been a mule for a drug dealer, and panicking about being pulled over, had opened fire as soon as Tad tapped on his window.
The cost of the game. All the brothers knew that Brice, detailed out of the Texas Ranger Special Operations Division in Austin and a sharpshooter when a SWAT squad was called out, could be the one in the sights of a gun-toting criminal some day.
“Well, thanks for meeting me for lunch,” Brice said, trying to return to a more up-beat mood.
“Will you be around Whiskey River for awhile?” Duncan asked.
“A few days, probably. Might as well stay here rather than go back to Austin. It’s a shorter drive to the courthouse in Johnson City.”
“You’re welcome to bunk in at the house,” Duncan offered.
“Or stay here at the cabin,” Grant said.
“Hmm… take up residence with one of my newlywed brothers? Probably not. I might camp up at our old site on the ridge. Or I could get a room at Hell’s Half Acre B&B downtown, where I could walk to the diner or Booze’s or the steak house if I’m wanting something fancy.”
Grant grinned. “That might be fitting. The swinging single dude staying in a former bordello.”
Duncan shook his head. “You might not want to stay with us, but you know our lovely wives are at least going to want to feed you if you stay in the area.”
“Well, I might not turn down an invite to some meals.”
“I should think not,” Duncan said. “I do a better steak than Barron’s and Grant makes some mean tacos and enchiladas.”
“Dinners for sure, then, “ Brice said. “I’ll text you and let you know my plans.”
The threesome rose and carried their drinks and takeout bags back into the cabin. “We’ll look to see you again soon, then, little brother,” Duncan said.
“Thanks for hosting us for lunch at the cabin,” Brice said. “It’s still the best view in three counties.”
“Anytime,” Grant said. “With you chasing the bad guys all over central Texas, we don’t get to see you all that often.”
“Well, I’ll try not to hang around long enough for you to tire of my company,” Brice said.
“Good luck at the library,” Duncan said. “I hope you turn up something useful.”An hour later, after checking into a room at the B&B and parking his truck in the lot, Brice blew out a breath of relief as he walked into the cool air-conditioned dimness of the Whiskey River library. Even at midday, the high ridge on which Grant’s cabin was located got a good breeze, and sitting in the shade on the deck, being outdoors was still pleasant. After walking two blocks in town from the B&B, with no breeze and heat rising in waves off the roads and sidewalks, the air conditioning felt great.
Not that he’d ever admit it to his brothers, he thought, smiling, unless he wanted to get ribbed about going soft. They’d all grown up cutting hay, chasing down stray cows, and mending fencing all through the year. Ranch work didn’t stop for weather, whether the stifling heat of late summer or the cold driving rain of January. His boyhood spent in the open had prepared him well for August two-a-day football practices in high school, too.
But being able to tolerate the heat and enjoying it were two different things.
Though, being off duty, he wasn’t wearing a badge, most of the patrons in the reading room still looked up as he walked over to the librarian’s desk. A broad-shouldered former offensive lineman who stood six foot, six, in jeans, boots, western shirt and signature white Stetson, tended to attract attention even without the Ranger star on his chest.
Most of patrons here, though, were long-time residents he knew well, who, respecting the library silence rules, threw him a wave or a nodded rather than calling out a greeting. Walking up to he desk, he doffed his hat and smiled at Shirley Lane, who’d been the head librarian as long as he could remember.
“Hi, Miss Shirley. How are you?” he said in a low voice.
“Why Brice McAllister, as I live and breathe! My, you’re looking good—all grown up and a Texas Ranger!” She shook her head.
“Yeah, I expect you thought I would end up behind bars rather than holding the keys,” he teased.
“Now you three boys kicked up some larks growing up, but I always knew you were good kids. How have you been?”
“Doing fine. And you?”
“Well, it’s been a bit lonely since I lost Warren, but I’m managing. What brings you in?”
“I want to look at the old and current county maps. Then match them up to the deeds of ownership and maybe tax records of income tax paid on mineral rights. Where would I find those?”
“The maps are all kept in the reference room. Some of them are fragile, so I’m afraid you can’t borrow them. But you’re welcome to look at them and take any notes you want. The original deeds and tax records are at the County Courthouse in Johnson City, but for a small fee, you can access them online.”
“Great. Let me pay you the fee, and then I’ll go look at the maps. In the reference room, you said?”
“Yes. Mary Williams is the reference librarian. Tell her what you need and she’ll pull out the maps for you.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat.
“You need anything else, just let me know.”
After paying his fee and thanking Shirley for her help, he walked down a short hallway to the reference room, where rare or fragile or historic books and records were kept. In addition to walls of bookshelves and cabinets with wide, shallow drawers that held the maps, the room contained tables and chairs where patrons could sit while they viewed the materials, several of them also holding desktop computers linked into the library internet system.
The room was empty except for a dark-haired woman who was facing way from him, replacing some books onto a shelf. “Hello, ma’am,” Brice called out when he walked in, not wanting to startle her. “Miss Shirley said you’d help me find some maps.”
The woman turned toward him. “Certainly, sir. Which maps do you need?”
Her name hadn’t rung a bell, and when she turned to face him, he confirmed that he had never met her. Tall for a woman, which made the top of her head reach about to his chin. Lustrous dark hair pulled back severely into a bun. Dark eyes that might be pretty, although the heavy dark-rimmed glasses she wore made it difficult to tell. Skin with a slight olive tint said she might be Hispanic, despite the bland Anglo name. Which might have been a married name, except Brice noted she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
She was, however, wearing a dark, shapeless, long-sleeved dress out of some sort of material that looked like burlap that might just be the ugliest thing he’d ever seen on a woman. Though by her unlined face and air of vitality, he’d estimate her to be about his own age–late-twenties, maybe, the granny-hairdo and unattractive clothing made her seem older.
Smiling, he held out his hand. “Brice McAllister, Miss Williams. I grew up around here—you may know my brothers, Duncan and Grant, who run our family place, the Triple A ranch. I don’t recall seeing you around town before, so you must be new here.”
She gave him a brief smile, but didn’t shake his hand. “I’ve worked at the library for about a year. Now, what was it you wanted me to find for you, Mr. McAllister?”
He didn’t consider himself irresistible to women, but Brice usually got a warmer response to an introduction and a smile than that.
O-kay, so she didn’t do friendly. Must be from a big city somewhere. Taking the time to say hello and chat briefly when you encountered someone was pretty much the minimum standard of politeness in a small town like Whiskey River.
But he could do all-business, too, if that was what she preferred.
“I’d like to look at all the city and county maps, from the first surveys to the last. Also access deed records and property taxes, which Miss Shirley told me I could do online. I paid her the fee.”
She nodded. “If you’ll have a seat at one of the tables, I’ll locate the maps and bring them over, along with the network password and the internet address for the county deeds and records office.”
He did as instructed, choosing a table near the window where the light would be good. Once he had the map location and owners pinned down, he could check to see whether taxes had ever been paid for mineral rights on any of the properties. There were lucrative deposits of oil and gas all over Texas, the nearby Permian Basin containing one of the largest.
He could understand Marshall Thomason wanting to buy out ranchers who might be sitting on valuable oil reserves, but as far as he knew, there was no guarantee the Triple A had any. They had certainly never authorized any company to explore and find out. So why would Thomason want their land?
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe, if he was in fact behind the incidents, it was just pure meanness, trying to aggravate a man his name and status didn’t impress, who’d never shown him the deference Thomason felt his wealth and his important family connections deserved.
With nothing to do but wait, Brice found himself watching Miss No Nonsense Librarian. With her severe hairdo, glasses and ugly dress, she could be a caricature of the Old Maid Librarian. What had soured her on life? he wondered.
Her demeanor might shout “old maid—men stay away” but her movements were graceful, almost athletic. Brice wondered if she’d been a gymnast or a dancer. Certainly she balanced the wide, unwieldy maps she was extracting from the map case with ease. He caught himself before he invited a snub by asking if he could give her a hand.
Miss Williams would probably tell him, with a disapproving stare, that she was fully capable of Doing It All Herself.
The occupational hazard of law enforcement—meeting someone, he instinctively began to evaluate them, figure out their background, decide whether the way they presented themselves matched their appearance. Miss Mary Williams was something of a puzzle. But he figured if the woman had had a bad experience with men and wanted to avoid them, becoming a reference librarian where she dealt mostly with dusty maps and moldy papers was probably an excellent occupation.
Dressing like she did, too, would eliminate any second looks that might notice the pretty eyes and dark hair and prompt a man to try to get to know her better.
A few minutes later, after extracting a card from her desk drawer and scrawling a note on it, she brought the maps over and spread them carefully on a table adjacent to the one he’d chosen with the computer.
“Some of the maps are too large to fit on the computer table, so I’ll leave them here. You can review them and move over to do your online search. Here’s the password and IP address.” She handed him the card. “You may view the maps for as long as you like, or until the library closes. As I’m sure Miss Shirley told you, reference materials can’t be checked out. Just leave them on the table when you are finished. I’ll put them away later.”
“Thank you, Miss Williams,” he said, trying another smile.
Which received no more response than the first. Returning a short nod, Mary Williams walked back to her desk and back to her work, doing an excellent job of ignoring him.
For next few hours, Brice looked over maps, checked the deed and tax records online and made some notes. Only a few of the farms and ranches on the back road along which Duncan told him Thomason had purchased properties had ever recorded paying taxes on mineral rights or royalties. Even on those, the amounts paid were low, indicating that the area probably wasn’t rich with easily obtainable oil and gas. If the reserves on the ranches that had been tapped were modest, there was less likelihood that a neighboring property would contain a big enough bonanza of oil, gas, onyx or gypsum to make it worthwhile for Thomason to purchase it.
Of course, he’d only done a cursory search. Warranty deeds for property that didn’t specifically mention the mineral rights supposedly indicated those rights belonged to the property owners. But sometimes, previous owners leased or sold mineral rights without filing a separate mineral rights deed, leaving the status of the mineral rights cloudy, even if the new owner had a valid warranty deed. New landowners in Texas were always advised to have a detailed title search done before they tried to exploit any mineral assets on their property, a laborious and often expensive proposition.
Given the little he’d uncovered, he didn’t think it probable that Thomason, more concerned about his own profits than enriching anyone else, would have wanted to hire the expensive expertise of a “landman,” a specialist whose sole job was to trace out mineral rights from surface property rights, usually on behalf of an oil or gas company interested in drilling on the property.
The only thing the properties possessed in common was a border along the county road that formed the western barrier of the Triple A. Which, his instincts told him, if Thomason were trying to sabotage operations and make the Triple A so unprofitable that Duncan and Grant were forced to sell off part of the land, it didn’t appear to have anything to do with mineral rights.
Still, the fact that the property bordered the Triple A made him suspect that, if there were in fact harassment and Thomason was behind it, the reason still had to be something about the land. Though he had no idea what.
Standing, he stretched out his back, stiff from bending over the maps, and walked over to the reference desk, where Miss Williams sat working on a desktop computer. “I’m finished with them, ma’am,” he said. “Sure I can’t bring them over to the desk for you?”
“No, thank you, I’d prefer to handle them myself.”
Miss Shirley would have asked him if he’d found what he needed, or whether she could get him something else, or at least bid him goodbye. Mary Williams, after giving him another short nod he took as a dismissal, returned her attention to her computer and went back to ignoring him.
It shouldn’t have annoyed him—what did it matter whether Whiskey River’s reference librarian liked him or not? But her barely polite demeanor and extreme disinterest seemed…deliberate, somehow. Not antagonistic, exactly, but…wary.
Why should a woman he’d never met before be wary of him?
The question tweaking his lawman’s curiosity even further, with a frown, he walked out.
