BUFORD AND THE FBI IN KANORADO
Copyright WRBJr Living Trust
DAY FOUR Kanorado, 2:30–3:45 PM MDT
Buford shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other as they stepped out of Borderline dimness into bright sun. “Good omelet?” Shaw inquired.
“Heartland food.” Buford patted his strained abdomen. “Four eggs, refritos, chili, homemade salsa, sour cream. About three pounds of food. How about your huevos rancheros?”
“Not sure I’ll re-adapt to the East again, if I ever get transferred. Gonna have to add two miles to my run tomorrow.” He tipped his Stetson down against the glare. “The bartender is holding out on us.”
“Ya think?” Buford grinned. “She’ll already be on the phone. She was leaning that way so hard I’m surprised she didn’t tip over when we went to pay.”
“Noticed that too, did you?”
“I am, after all, a trained detective. Couple those cowboys holding back too. How they treat strangers out in these parts. Code of the West, all that. Wish they played poker with my crowd in Denver if they can’t bluff better than that. Got my eye on a fancy new fly-rod.”
“You think red-faced beer-belly in the straw cowboy hat really thought I was a range detective?”
“Well you dress the part. But that was just beer-belly’s idea of a leading question. Shook him up when you gave him a peep at your G-man badge.”
Shaw smiled. “Did, didn’t it? You didn’t show yours.”
“Bodge? I dun nid no stinkin’ bodge. I’m the mysterious East Coast gunsel, see?”
“Did you get enough sleep in Goodland? You’re getting goofy on me.”
“Just enjoying freedom from the desk. When I get home I turn back into a pumpkin and we turn this over to the guys from Pennsylvania.”
Shaw grinned. “I would love to be here when the Pennsylvanians meet the boys at the Borderline. Let’s cruise.”
Shaw cranked the AC high and they rolled slowly through town. Except for tongue-lolling mutts, and kids playing loud and dusty pickup baseball on a dirt field, the place looked abandoned. Every air-conditioner spat moisture into the dry air. No green Ford Taurus visible in any driveway. Sluggish activity at the grain elevators; nobody moving fast under the weight of the sun. A handful of vehicles scattered from the Borderline, lunch crowd going back to work.
The pushy red-faced cowboy drove a gigantic red Dodge pickup toward the elevators. Shaw ran his plates and then wants and warrants. “Got a rap sheet. Woman-hitter. Couple of domestics. I thought cowboys didn’t do that shit.”
“Straw hat don’t make that asshole a cowboy.” Buford hated woman-hitters. “Our missing gal would take him, one hand tied behind her.” He liked the idea.
“No argument. He’d be too stupid to know and she’d clock him. He was afraid of something though. Not us. That kind of creep knows when he’s in law-trouble and when he’s not.”
“Somebody here beer-belly is smart enough to be afraid of? Connected to our gone girl?”
“Too far-fetched, Sherlock. Let’s expand our grid.” They went into Kansas far as the freeway access road. Ranches and farms, too scattered to be sure they saw all parked cars, but no green Taurus. They rolled back through town into Colorado. The crossroads had a seed-and-garden store and vehicle-wrecking yard besides the Borderline and co-op gas station. More scattered houses in Colorado. A few old single-wide mobile homes on hardscrabble dirt; no mature trees on those lots. “Lot of old Chevy beaters,” Shaw observed.
“Yeah, GM 350s that run forever or four hundred thousand miles, whichever comes first. Irrigation workers up from Mexico, six or seven to the car, dividing the cost of gas to come make some money.”
Again no Taurus. Shaw drove back, turned north at the crossroads. They paralleled a high sturdy metal fence stouter than usual range-land wire. A mile up the highway he straightened suddenly. “Are those — buffalo?”
“Yep, buffler.” Buford gave it the historic pronunciation.
“I’ll be damned. Let’s see what the sign says.” Shaw pulled off the highway by a stout gate. A big white sign stood inside the fence:
TALL GRASS RECLAMATION — BUFFALO COMMONS
KANORADO DIVISION — G.M. Dorn, Mgr.
“I read about this in National Geographic.” Shaw sounded enthused. “See, this is what I love about my job. Never know what you may run across. They’re trying to reclaim the prairie from dry-land farming and over-grazing. Right?”
“Real dry-land farmers died out in Dust Bowl days,” Buford said. “They’ve got irrigation for wheat now. Cattle ranchers still scrape out a living. Lot of them hate these Buffalo Commons people. Say buffalo transmit diseases.”
“Other way around, what I read. Great idea! Repopulate native grasses that hold the soil. Let buffalo roam. They never destroyed ground-cover in a million years of roaming.”
Buford was surprised at the FBI man’s excitement. “Not my area. I’m just a city cop. They do say there’s fewer people per square mile out here than back when Indians had it to themselves. In dozens of counties from Colorado to Wyoming, Kansas to Nebraska.”
“Makes sense to me. Not much of an economy. Local businesses go under. Banks repossess the traffic lights. All the young ’uns head for the city. Towns dry up and blow away.”
“Like Kanorado seems to be doing,” Buford said. “Hard to believe places like this are so close to Denver. Especially on a Saturday night with gang-bangers banging and knives coming out in the bars. Lowlifes buying and selling dope and pussy and guns in liquor-store parking lots downtown.”
“You sound like a Philip Marlowe novel. Think they’ll build a buffalo-fence around Denver? Create our very own Empty Quarter for tall grass, ‘buffler’ and the tribes?”
Buford snorted. “Buffalo would be on the Sixteenth Avenue Mall in no time. All that sturdy fencing? Full-grown buffalo consider that a hint. Not a barrier. Take a notion, they’d go through that fence like shit through — “
The car phone between their seats buzzed. Local area-code. Shaw answered, listened. “I’m putting you on speaker, Mr. Driggs.”
“Who all you got there?” Nasal, suspicious voice.
“Sergeant Buford, Denver PD. What can we do for you, Mr. Driggs?”
“Maybe you should ask what I can do for you. You left your card at the Borderline. Right?”
Shaw pumped a fist. “I did, Mr. Driggs. How can you help me?”
“Any ree-ward for that green Ford you lookin’ for?”
“Mr. Driggs.” Shaw’s official personality snapped into place like a steel door, making the happy buffalo tourist an illusion. “This is a federal investigation into criminal assault on an officer of the law. Right now you sound more like accomplice than informant. Make me change my mind.” Buford grinned. Shaw had some chops after all.
Their caller didn’t think so. “Accomplice! Sheee-it, naw! Naw! I didn’t accomplice nothing. Tarron did, the stupid shit. Cool your jets, city boy. I got that very same Ford Taurus right here in one of my garage bays. I’m calling, ain’t I?”
Buford motioned for Shaw to mute the phone. “Driggs Wrecking Yard. We drove right by it.” Shaw blinked, nodded, dropped the Crown Vic in drive, spun gravel as he punched the phone back up.
“ — hear me now?” Driggs was whining.
“Hear you fine, Mr. Driggs,” Shaw said crisply. “We’ll be with you in five minutes if you are at your place of business. Talk to me about this Tarron person. Right now, please.”
