Cole and Velasquez exchanged a knowing look, but they gave nothing away.
“Of course,” Velasquez said easily. “Raines, go and arrange for transportation with your men. Make sure there is adequate ventilation and protection in the transport. It is a long drive to the border at El Paso.”
“You bet, boss!” Raines said, smiling with something like relief, and he went toward the car he’d come in.
“You don’t trust your man,” Cole said when Raines had gone.
“I trust no one,” Velasquez replied. “Something is wrong here. The animals seem not only restless but in a state of discomfort. Do you not agree?”
Cole, whose family had been ranchers for generations, agreed at once.
“Could you arrange for your veterinarian to check them over before they leave this ranch?” Velasquez asked. “They are very young. I would not want harm to come to them on the long trip to my ranch.”
Cole studied the man with appreciation of his concern. He didn’t look like a person who would care about animals, but obviously he did. Cole called his foreman and told him to have the veterinarian do a quick examination of the young bulls and not let Raines see him do it if the man came back before the exam was finished.
While this was going on, Sheriff Dunn Marlowe drove up at the stables where the conversation was going on.
As he joined Cole and the visiting cattlemen, his face suddenly hardened. His dark eyes glittered as he stared at Velasquez.
“We have a problem,” Velasquez told him suddenly before he could make a comment.
“What sort of problem?” Marlowe asked.
“Something is suspicious about the small lot of purebred bulls I just sold this man,” Cole told him. “He wants our vet tohave a look at them before he takes them off the property. He thinks his employee may have some shady business going on that concerns them.”
“What sort of shady business?” Marlowe asked, his eyes burning a hole in Velasquez’s face.
Velasquez turned to him. “You know that mules very often send drugs across the border inside all sorts of vehicles.”
“Of course,” Marlowe said, surprised.
“This has also been done inside the stomach of animals.” His face hardened. “If someone has done this to my young bulls, there will be consequences,” he added icily.
Marlowe was surprised at the other man’s heated reply. He knew Velasquez. He owed the man a debt that he wanted to pay in blood. It was all he could do to stand next to him without throttling him. Velasquez’s concern for the animals was unexpected. Very unexpected. It infuriated him that he couldn’t just arrest Velasquez and take him into the jail. But Velasquez had not done anything in the United States that would stand up to an arrest. In fact, he had no record at all, not in this country.
Velasquez could see the hatred in the other man’s face. He knew why it was there and he wished with all his heart that he had time and the opportunity to apologize and explain. But he knew the other man would not accept any apology from him and that he would not understand any explanation. They were rivals in a business that did credit to neither of them. He had caused this man untold agony. The man wanted to do the same to him. He couldn’t know that there had been plots within plots that led to Marlowe’s tragedy, preceded by that of Velasquez. It would have been a comedy of errors except for the horrible mistakes that had been made.
At the moment, of course, there was no opportunity for anything except the business they were involved in.
While they were sharing information, the vet came around the side of the corral and joined them, his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. His face was furious.
“We have a problem,” the vet said.
“Well?” Cole asked.
The vet said quietly, “Each of them has several plastic bags full of narcotics, or at least they look like narcotics, in their stomachs. And what a good thing you did by having an X-ray machine added to your operation.”
“Oh, my God,” Cole said, furious. “What, were they put into them surgically?”
“I don’t believe so,” the vet replied. “I think they were forced to swallow them.”
“Any idea what sort of drugs?” Cole asked.
The vet gave him a droll look. “I’m not psychic. I’ll need to get them out first. Something to induce diarrhea, then something to stop it just as quickly, so that they don’t get dehydrated. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen,” he added, shaking his head.
“Drugs,” Velasquez, who had listened quietly, said coldly. “In the stomachs of babies!”
Cole wondered at the expression on Marlowe’s face because it was an amalgamation of anger and surprise and astonishment and curiosity all at once. “You can remove the drugs?” Velasquez asked the vet.
