"Let's go. I want to find out how those poachers hauled that wood away. There has to be an outlet from the valley through the next ridgeline. Let's see if we can find it on the north side. We haven't covered that stretch of land yet."
"Lead the way," Dale said, striding to Pancho.
They rode off Kerney's land toward the mountains where the country road veered toward San Geronimo.
An unimproved dirt track sliced into a canyon along a small stream, showing signs of recent vehicle travel. At the junction where two small creeks converged, snow covered the ground. Fresh tire tracks forked up the side of the foothills. They topped out to find a high mountain meadow, wedged between a small mesa and the mountains.
The meadow was fenced, and a locked gate and no trespassing signs barred their passage. Halfway in the meadow stood a new timber-frame house with a blue metal pitched roof. A child's bicycle leaned against the covered porch. No motor vehicles were present.
A rectangular greenhouse had been erected at the far end of the meadow, a good distance from the house.
Built with concrete blocks and rough-cut lumber, the roof joists were covered with thick translucent plastic panels.
"They sure are tucked away in here," Dale said.
"Are we going in?"
"We haven't been invited," Kerney said.
"How about I buy you lunch in Las Vegas?"
"It's a little early to eat."
"It won't be after I track down Nestor Barela and talk to him."
"We're packing it in?"
"As far as the trail riding goes." Kerney pointed to a dip in the tree line where the horizontal line of a mesa showed through.
"If I'm oriented correctly, that's my property over there. The defile should be just a little to the south and east. We may have found a neighbor who just might know something about the poaching. I'll pay him a visit when he's home."
"Then why go see Barela?"
"Because he may know something the neighbor doesn't."
"Makes sense," Dale said.
"You really do think like a cop."
"It's habit forming."
Shoe sat in the back of the extended cab on a jump seat, panting quietly, as they made the short fifteen-mile trip to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The city, situated on the edge of the high plains with Hermit's Peak and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains looming in the background, had its boom days late in the last century when the arrival of the railroad turned it into a major transportation center.
With almost a thousand historic buildings dating from early in the century and before. Las Vegas was staging a comeback. A number of the old buildings that ringed the plaza and spread down Bridge Street had been renovated, new businesses had opened, tourism had picked up, and newcomers were moving in.
They stopped at the police department on a corner of the plaza. Kerney went in, introduced himself to the shift commander, flashed his credentials, and asked a few questions. The officer knew Barela, and Kerney got directions to Nestor's house.
Barela lived just outside the city limits on land along the Gallinas River that he'd turned into a compound for his extended family. It consisted of four manufactured homes on concrete pads lined up in a row facing the highway.
A wrought-iron portal arched over the driveway, with the words Los Barelas spelled out in cursive writing.
Beneath the lettering was a fabricated cutout of a cowboy on horseback twirling a lasso. A fenced pasture dipped down to the river where a young man was cleaning out the inside of a four-horse trailer at the side of a barn.
Six quarter horses in the pasture looked up at the sound of Dale's truck on the dirt driveway, swished their tails lazily, and went back to grazing. There were eight cars and trucks of various makes parked in front of the house, none of them more than two or three years old.
The front door to a house swung open as they drew near, and a stocky man in his late thirties with reddish brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard walked off the porch to greet them.
Kerney waved, got out after Dale slowed to a stop, and limped to meet the man halfway. His right knee, shattered by a bullet in a gunfight, ached from his time in the saddle.
"I'm looking for Nestor Barela," he said.
"Are you here about the horse we have for sale?" the man asked.
"No, I'm here about the Fergurson lease."
"We're not giving up that lease until it runs out."
"When is that?" Kerney asked, knowing full well the lease expired at the end of the year.
The man thought about answering, shrugged it off, and nodded at the house where an elderly man stood framed in a doorway.
"Talk to my father. He's home."
Kerney reached the porch step and smiled at a sinewy man somewhere in his late seventies. His legs were bowed from years in the saddle. The back of his hands carried the scars from a lifetime of hard physical work He had a full head of gray hair and sharp, dear brown eyes.
"Mr. Barela?" Kerney asked.
"Yes," Barela answered suspiciously.
Kerney decided not to give too much away.
"My name is Kevin Kerney." He nodded in the direction of the truck, where Dale waited.
"My friend and I are interested in buying your grazing rights on the Fergurson land for the summer."
Barela's expression soured further.
"I'm not interested."
"I'd be willing to pay a premium for it."
"I don't keep it to make money," Nestor replied.
"Mind telling me why you do keep it?" Kerney asked.
"It hasn't been put in production for some time, as far as I can tell."