Tortoise Soup by Jessica Speart Page A

his cattle on public land. He now owed a whopping one hundred thousand dollars in fines and violations. While federal agents were itching to slap him behind bars, Justice officials were holding them back. Harley had recently issued a warning that any federal agents coming onto his property would be shot. Still smarting over the bad publicity from the shoot-outs at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the Justice Department wasn’t sure they wanted to take on Harley as well. In the local cowboys’ eyes, that made Harley Rehrer as powerful as God.
    I finished my breakfast and turned back to Hayes. “Speaking of Harley, I plan on visiting him this morning.”
    Clayton stared at me as if he were looking at a ghost. “You’re joking, right, Porter?”
    I almost felt touched by Clayton’s concern. “I don’t see why there should be any problem. I’m just going out to pay a civil call. What’s he going to do? Shoot me?” I began to laugh.
    Tipping his hat, Clayton gave a slight bow in my direction. “Nice to have known you, Porter. Dead woman walking here,” he loudly announced as he turned and walked away.
    If Clayton meant to throw me off balance, it worked. But I wasn’t about to let him know it.
    The trip to Harley’s ranch seemed endless, even with Bonnie crooning the blues. A town consisting of a gas station and a diner flashed by all too quickly. Even cows on the side of the road barely moved, hypnotized by the oppressive heat that pulsated up from the ground into their hooves. A Mojave green rattler sunned itself in the middle of the road, daring me to pass by. Four feet long and as thick as a man’s arm, the reptile barely bothered to lift its head off the asphalt. Mesmerized by the warmth that penetrated its belly, it half-heartedly shook its rattles as if I presented no more threat than a bug.
    Cows were soon replaced by abandoned cars that littered the desert floor like discarded tin cans. Lying flat on their backs, their rusted axles reared up in surrender, their tires long gone. Others had become targets for gun-happy cowpokes, with bullet holes pockmarking their vanquished shells. It was clear that cowboys were little more than rednecks in chaps. Just recently one hotshot had used his double-barreled shotgun to fill a thirty-foot Joshua full of lead. In a twist of desert justice, the giant cactus had fallen on top of him, creating the first cowboy voodoo doll in the West.
    The road rose sharply and then dipped out of sight, much like a roller coaster that had reached its summit. I took the plunge and found myself at the foot of the Virgin Mountains, where tumbleweed and cactus draped the desert floor. Rocky plateaus rose off in the distance.
    Following the directions I’d managed to scrounge, I veered onto a dirt road, turning left at a creek, right at a bush, and left again at a twig. I’d been told that I would know Harley’s dwelling when I saw it. My guess was that it would be the only house around. I peered out of the dust that covered my windshield like a ghost bumming a free ride and caught sight of a decrepit drive. My eyes followed its zigs and zags to a run-down ranch house perched on top of a small hill. Word had it that Harley had a 7mm Magnum set up inside, mounted on a tripod facing the road. I figured I was already dead-center in its sight.
    A wooden placard was mounted on a post at the entry to the drive. The sign held ten stick figures, each with a blood-red bull’s-eye smack dab in the middle of its chest. A warning read, “Federal Agents: Enter At Your Own Peril.” Not exactly your down-home western hello.
    It seemed that the desert, along with its critters, was a brutal and unforgiving place. Everything out here threatened to either prick you, sting you, bite you—or maybe shoot you.
    I had barely started up Harley’s drive when he appeared on horseback to greet me. A plain-faced man, Harley had skin as coarse as a lizard’s. He was dressed in a denim shirt and worn jeans, along with a red