Thirty-five years ago, Clifford Talbott had inherited the ranch from his father. Since then, in early March of every year, no matter what the weather, he drove up from his home in Moriarty, a town just south of the Santa Fe County line, to air the place out, make necessary repairs, and get it shipshape and ready for a small herd of cattle that he would buy at a spring auction, fatten up over the summer, and sell in the fall.
Most years he broke even on the effort, once in a while he lost money, and some years he made a small profit. But running livestock on the ranch kept his property taxes low and allowed him to renew his Forest Service grazing permit, which was hard to come by and valuable.
He looked out the window over the sink. On the outside sill an inch or more of white stuff had piled up against the glass. If he’d stayed home and waited for the storm to blow over like his wife had asked him to, he wouldn’t be standing in the ranch house his father had built with the still-warm body of a man he’d just shot and killed.
Finally, he turned. The dead man—a boy probably no older than Talbott’s teenage grandson—still clutched the pistol. Clifford recognized the handgun as his old S&W Model 10 revolver, which he’d left behind in the bedroom chest of drawers.
He glanced away from the body. The police needed to be told, but there was no way to call them unless he got back in his truck and drove to Canoncito, where he should be able to either get a signal for his cell phone or borrow a phone from someone in the village.
Talbott’s wife was a big fan of television detective shows, so Clifford had learned that it was best not to touch anything at a crime scene. He left the Remington rifle on the kitchen counter, banked the woodstove to lower the fire, and went to his truck, wading through a good foot and a half of snow past the motorcycle parked near the porch.
He’d made it to the ranch in four-wheel drive, but it had been slow going. With wet snow still coming down, he decided to put chains on the tires before starting out. He drove the truck into the barn, turned on the single bare lightbulb that dangled from a roof joist, and got to work, his hands still shaking from what he had done.
He got the chains snapped on and started for Canoncito. Blowing snow cut his visibility down to less than ten feet, and the truck headlights couldn’t penetrate enough to give him a fix on the road. He reduced his speed to a slow and steady five miles an hour and used the vague outline of the fence line bordering the county road to keep himself on track. The bad driving conditions worsened his already jangled nerves. He sat bolt upright, gripping the steering wheel with all his strength, looking for any obstruction up ahead.
An hour passed before he began the descent into the narrow canyon that sheltered Canoncito. He rounded the last curve where the pavement started. Soon the train tracks and the streambed came into view, and Clifford let out a sigh of relief, which turned into a lump in his throat when he spotted a police car with flashing emergency lights blocking access to a side road.
He slowed to a stop behind the vehicle and flashed his headlights. A deputy sheriff got out and walked to the truck.
“This road is closed, sir,” the deputy said after Clifford lowered his window. “If you live on it, I’ll need to see some ID before I can let you through.”
“I don’t live here,” Clifford said, wondering how to tell an officer of the law that he’d just killed a person.
The deputy pointed toward the paved road that crossed the streambed and the railroad tracks. “Then you’ll have to move on.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Clifford said. “I need you or another police officer to go with me to my ranch up on the mesa.”
“Is there someone in need of immediate emergency assistance?” the deputy asked.
Clifford shook his head, took a deep breath, and worked out what he needed to say before speaking. “I’m trying to tell you that a man broke into my house, started a fire in the stove, cooked and ate some of my food, and tried to shoot me when I showed up. I killed him.”
The deputy’s friendly expression vanished and his hand found the pistol grip of his .45. “When did this happen?”
“Just now,” Clifford said.
The deputy drew his weapon and opened the driver’s door to Clifford’s vehicle. “Keep your hands where I can see them. You say you killed this person?”
Clifford raised his hands above his head. “Yes, with my hunting rifle, right between the eyes.”
“Where’s the weapon?”
“I left it at the ranch.”
“Do you have any other weapons on your person or in the truck?”
“No.”
“Step out of the vehicle,” the deputy ordered.
Clifford climbed down from the cab of his truck. “Are you arresting me?”
“Open your jacket and turn around.”
Clifford did as he was told. The deputy patted him down for weapons, cuffed him, took his wallet, and put him in the backseat of the police car behind a protective cage. He relayed Clifford’s driver’s license information to a dispatcher, asked for a records check, and then turned in his seat and read Clifford his rights.
Clifford said he understood them, didn’t need a lawyer, and would answer any questions.
“This person you shot, did you know him?” The deputy held a tiny tape recorder in his hand.
“No, I never saw him before.”
“In your own words, tell me exactly what happened.”
“I drove to my ranch and when I got there I saw that somebody had smashed the glass to the porch door and the lights were on inside the house. I took my rifle off the rear window rack of my truck and went to see who it was. I was sort of thinking that maybe somebody had broken in to get out of the cold. In this kind of weather it didn’t make much sense to think that somebody had driven to such an out-of-the-way place to rob me.”
“Go on.”
“There was a motorcycle parked outside next to the porch, so I called out a couple of times and even went back and sounded my truck horn hoping to get the attention of whoever was inside. But the wind was howling so bad I guess he didn’t hear me.”
“A motorcycle was parked outside?” the deputy asked with heightened interest. “Do you know what kind?”
“I didn’t pay it no mind. Anyway, I went inside and here was this young kid, no more than eighteen or nineteen. He had my old barn coat wrapped around his shoulders and was sitting in my easy chair with my Smith and Wesson pistol that I keep in a bedroom dresser pointed at me. He raised the pistol as if to shoot me and I shot him first.”
“Do you remember the make of the motorcycle?” the deputy asked.
“I don’t pay any attention to those contraptions,” Clifford said with a shake of his head.
“What did you do after you shot him?”
“I put chains on my truck tires and drove straight here so I could call the police. Then I saw you and stopped. I didn’t touch anything at the ranch, except to throw up in the sink and damp down the fire. I just left that boy sitting there, dead in my chair.”
Clifford choked up and paused to collect himself, but his voice broke anyway. “In my mind’s eye it’s a terrible thing to see.”
“Now, just relax, Mr. Talbott,” the deputy said soothingly. He turned away, keyed his radio microphone, and spoke to someone in code.
“Bring him to my twenty now,” a voice on the radio replied when the deputy had finished.
“Ten-four.”
“Will I have to go to jail?” Clifford asked as the deputy drove down the snowpacked dirt road. The thought scared him. Although he was still strong and healthy, he was seventy years old and the only gangbangers, criminals, and drug addicts he’d ever seen were on television news shows or on TV dramas.
The deputy nodded. “At the very least you’ll be transported to the jail and booked.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is. If the facts jibe with the statement you gave me, you may only be held overnight. But if the facts don’t agree, you’ll need to go before a judge and ask for bail.”
