RED, GREEN, OR MURDER - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

2 Steven F. Havill
The twenty-four H-Bar-T brands were all correct, high on
the left flank. As each wide-eyed Angus paraded past us, I saw
no signs of disease, no coughing or diarrhea, no runny or glazed
eyes, no hitches in gait, no dings or dents. But then again, even
though I’d been a livestock inspector for less than a year, I could
have eyeballed any of Herb Torrance’s livestock from the other
side of Posadas County with my eyes closed.
“Can you imagine John Chisum doin’ this?” Herb’s smokeeroded
voice jarred me out of la-la land. I looked across at him,
amused. I knew exactly what he meant, and he knew me well
enough to know I wouldn’t take offense at a gentle jibe aimed
at my employers.
“He would have shot somebody, probably, ” I said. Well,
maybe not. Maybe old John would have been enough of a
gentleman not to do that. But he sure would have shaken his
head in disgust at the thought of the government meddling in
his affairs, demanding all kinds of penny-ante paperwork and
fancy-schmancy permits.
Today, all Herb Torrance wanted to do was move this particular
little herd of cattle from the pasture near his home to a section
leased from the U.S. Forest Service up on the back side of Cat
Mesa, north of Posadas—about forty miles as the ravens flew,
maybe sixty-five by road. The grass was tall and lush there, and
the cattle would fatten up for market. But bureaucracies being
what they were, ranchers couldn’t just move cattle anymore.
They couldn’t just hire a bunch of dollar-a-day cowpunchers
and drive the herd here or there as John Chisum would have
done back in the 1880s.
Now, the critters traveled in the modern style, sandwiched hide
to hide in a stock trailer pulled behind a snorting diesel one-ton
pick-up truck. And before ranchers could even do that, the State
of New Mexico and the livestock board wanted their cut from the
operation, because, after all, it’s always about the money.
In this case, the tally that Herb Torrance would have to pay
for a transportation permit from me included forty cents for
each set of four legs, plus a five dollar service fee, plus a buck a