Gathering Fallen Rocks Ch. 10

Howard took a deep breath and said he needed to tell her about some things that had happened in the past. "I used to have a telephone at the ranch, but every time I went out there, someone had broken in. Then one time I got a phone bill, it was enormous, like six hundred dollars. The next month is was worse. I sat down one evening and looked at the bill, and noticed all the different times calls were made to some of the same numbers. Dumb me, I called one of the numbers and the guy that answered said, in Spanish, "Hello Santos" and man, I couldn't hang up fast enough. I took the bill to town and gave it to Pete. I don't know what he did with it, but I spent a few hours with lots of fancy badges answering questions. They said they would take care of the bill, asked me to keep the phone and I could get sloppy about locking my door if I wanted to. After a couple of months I got a call from one of the badges who said I could go ahead and have the phone disconnected, they had all the evidence they needed. I've never heard any more about it."

Gail interrupted to ask, "Were the calls international or just long distance, like to US area codes?"

"Both. About six months, no it was probably eight months ago, a woman, an illegal, came pounding on the door one night. She'd been raped and beaten pretty badly. I took her to the hospital and called Pete. He told me to leave and he'd take care of it from there. It happened a couple a more times and I did the same thing. I never did ask what Pete did with the women, but I guess they got treated, questioned, and returned across the border."

As Gail listened, she nodded. "That explains some of the women's underwear I saw that afternoon, when I took a walk?"

"Yeah, or maybe it was just dragged around by animals. Female underwear is an attractant to some wild animals. Not much is ever said, but I've seen it myself.

"A few times Santos has stopped by the house, you know, just stopped his car and motioned me over. He'd chat for a minute or two then say he could bring me a virgin or a clean woman anytime I wanted. He said he would get one I could keep, if I was really interested. A couple of times I've seen him driving one of the ranch vehicles, but most of the time it's one of his ranch hands ... and there will be four or five, mostly girls, and occasionally a young boy, in the back of the truck. An hour or so later the truck will drive back by and the back will be empty, so I can imagine what he does with them.

"Every once in a while you hear about some house being busted and it's full of sex slaves, I guess that's what they are called, but not all of them are Mexican, some are Oriental. From what I understand they are paying off their transport fees."

"Good Lord, yes," Gail shuddered. "I've heard of such things, but not this close to home."

"Oh, I think there's a regular network, but I really don't know much about it. So after about the fourth time I took one of the women to the hospital and then Santos showed his ugly mug offering me a woman, I called Pete. It was just a friendly call, you know, hey what's happening, and oh by the way, I need to report something, but I don't think it's a regular sheriff's thing, who is the best to call. I've known Holden Ramsey all my life.

"Billy's sort of a friend. His dad's always gotten him out of scrapes, but Billy's never done anything really bad, so most of us just turn a blind eye. I just didn't want something I reported to get back to Santos. Pete said to call Ramsey and tell him I'd already reported it to Pete."

"Did you think the sheriff was one of the people Atwood said is in Santo's hip pocket?"

"I didn't know, but I wanted to be safe. I think Ramsey is a little guy. He's probably a good cop but he can't do much and I don't think he likes Santos. You can sort of see it by the way he talks about him. Anything that gets done around here is federal, but I sort of wanted to get the information passed along to some federal badges, too, without having federal badges visiting me. Santos might find out about that pretty quickly. That's why I told Pete. So I called Ramsey and told him a few things. I guess he either visited with Santos or stopped him on the street and sounded curious, maybe he wheedled the information out of him, you know about you threatening him.

"Ramsey is not dumb, but he can really act like a country bumpkin, when it suits him. Billy is like that, too. Billy's got a lot of law enforcement training, but he won't get a license, said he'd have to quit having fun.

"I did not know about your gun. If I had known, I might not have said anything to Ramsey. I'm just so very, very thankful that you have that gun and know how to use it. If I could convince you to do it, I'd ask you to put it in your purse and carry it wherever you go, and if there is somewhere that you can't take it, then don't go there."

"Goodness, I'll have to think about that. If I understand what you're saying, Santos has a lot of people alerted to what he's doing. Why doesn't someone stop him and arrest him or something?"

"From what the feds didn't say, but hinted at, he's a little fish and they want to catch big fish. Well, I guess I just got tired of waiting. This has been going on long enough, and it's beginning to really piss me off. The feds don't care what it costs me to make repairs every time some illegal breaks into my home. They aren't going to go out there in my pasture and clean up all that trash. They aren't going to sit in front of my house and protect someone I care for, so I'll do it myself if I have to and that's what I told Ramsey. I told Pete the same thing. I told them it's time to do their business, or get off the pot."

"Howard," Gail said, almost shocked at the Howard's vehemence. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Sweetheart, I would not do a single thing to put you in danger. I'm trying to keep you out of danger. I just wanted to shake things up a little, get the feds off their rears and maybe put an end to my misery.

"Baby, you think you could give me a kiss about now, so I'll know you aren't real angry with me, because that might change in another minute or two."

The tone of warning in her voice is unmistakable, "Howard..."

"Just one kiss, a toe curler, and I'll tell you the rest, I promise." He wrapped his arms around Gail, pulling her as close as he could and kissed her. He took joy in her response and when he could bear to release her, he put her head on his shoulder and said, "It has been eight days and almost two hours since Doctor Jackson said I had to wait, and every one of those hours gets longer and longer."

"Howard, maybe I need to go stay with Aunt Jean. It would take a little pressure off both of us."

"Baby, oh my beautiful Baby, don't think that. I just need to know that I can hold you and I'm okay. I've been thinking about this all week and I didn't know what else to do. Pete told me what happened to those people in the pasture when your cell phone was used to call in the report about the buzzards. It was all I could think about when Santos said if he ever got the chance he'd leave you in the pasture."

"He said what?" Gail wasn't exactly screaming, but very nearly so.

Carefully, Howard repeated the threat the man had made, watching to see if Gail understood. "Santos said something like,'Usted controla a su mujer.' That basically means, 'You control your woman.' Then he said, 'I'll leave her out in the pasture with nothing but cows to lick her breasts.'"